By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

Chinese President Jiang Zemin's speech in Sanders Theatre this past Saturday may have seemed fairly tame and predictable to many listeners, but some of Harvard's China experts found significant messages between the lines.

The speech, titled "Enhance Mutual Understanding and Build Stronger Ties of Friendship and Cooperation," was delivered at 11 a.m. to an audience of about 1,000. The sound of protesters chanting on Oxford Street carried through the building's walls as Jiang, introduced by President Neil L. Rudenstine, began the speech in Mandarin with a simultaneous translation delivered through an assistive listening device system. Halfway through, he switched to English.

The opening section of the speech, a lengthy discourse on China's scientific and cultural contributions from ancient times to the present, seemed calculated to appeal to an audience at an institution of higher learning, although some experts detected a more suggestive subtext.

Jiang's synopsis mentioned, among other things, the philosophical writings of Confucius and Lao Tzu, 3,000-year-old records of solar and lunar eclipses engraved on tortoise shells, the invention of an early seismograph, the independent discovery of the Pythagorean theorem, and the calculation of pi to 3.1415926.

Jiang also spoke of early Chinese travelers who promoted "mutual exchanges and learning between China and other countries of the world." He asserted that in their struggle to modernize, today's Chinese are following a policy of "opening-up," and recommended that in a world "full of colors and splendor . . . we should respect and learn from each other and draw upon others' strong points to offset one's own deficiencies for achieving common progress."

Professor of Chinese History Peter Bol thought that this part of Jiang's speech showed a significant change in how Chinese leaders see themselves and how they wish their country to be seen by the world.

"The implication is that after decades of trying to set the past aside, they're now saying that it matters, that they're not just a great power, but they have a cultural legacy as well. It's significant that he mentioned Confucius because under Mao, Confucius was attacked as the epitome of everything that was old-fashioned and counterrevolutionary."

Bol said that Jiang's evocation of China's past was also significant because the country's modern period has been marked by a search for a political system that works as well as the older civil system in which individuals rose in the administrative hierarchy through education and merit.

"In the 20th century, this civil system ceased to work, and there has been a great attempt to find something else. They've tried a constitutional monarchy, a constitutional republic, a dictatorship, a fascist state, and a socialist state, but so far they haven't found the solution."

History Professor William Kirby agreed with Bol about the significance of Jiang's emphasis on China's past.

"I thought it was interesting that the leader of China's Communist Party would spend so much time speaking about history and especially about these early cultural and intellectual achievements. For years the Communist Party wanted to do away with the past. Everything that happened before 1949 was considered 'old China.' Now it seems they want to re-embrace and relegitimize the past," Kirby said.

He was also struck by Jiang's reference to China's unity, a seemingly innocuous passage which, according to Kirby, conceals a major historical and political problem.

"The Chinese nation," Jiang said, "is a big family composed of 56 nationalities. Since time immemorial, people of all nationalities have established closely knitted political, economic, and cultural links and joined hands in developing the vast land of our country."

What Jiang did not say was that China's present borders are those of the Ch'ing Empire, an amalgamation of peoples forcibly united through the conquests of the Manchus, who invaded China in the 17th century. The Ch'ing dynasty lasted until 1912, when it was replaced by the Republic of China under Sun Yat-sen.

"Modern China's problem has been how to hold on to it all," Kirby said, "how to maintain the unity of a great empire, but under the idea that it is really a nation-state."

In addition to the country's unity, Jiang spoke about other traditions that have characterized China over the centuries. These included "maintaining independence," "the peace-loving tradition," and "the tradition of striving for self-perfection."

The speech ended with the hope that China and the U.S. will settle their "differences properly so as to reach the goal of promoting mutual understanding, broadening common ground, developing cooperation and building a future together."

Jiang praised the late Harvard Professor John King Fairbank for his devotion to Chinese studies and announced that he would present Harvard with an edition of The Twenty-Four Histories, a traditional work chronicling China's past from ancient times to the Ming dynasty. The newly published edition includes marginal commentary by Mao Zedong.

Issues such as Tibetan and Taiwanese independence or the abuse of civil rights, clearly uppermost in the minds of the many protesters who had braved the inclement weather to make their voices heard, had no part in Jiang's speech.

However, the Chinese leader did respond afterward to questions regarding these issues, displaying a relaxed, good-humored demeanor that many found surprising.

Jiang's response to a question about why he refused to meet with the Dalai Lama confirmed Kirby's observation that modern China is determined to allow no diminution of its imperial territory. The exiled Tibetan leader, Jiang said, "must recognize publicly that Tibet is an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China; that he must state publicly to give up Tibet independence, and that he must stop all activities aimed at splitting the motherland. However, much to my regret, up until this date, the fourteenth Dalai Lama has not stopped his separatist activities."

Much of the political protest that Jiang witnessed on the streets of Cambridge and indeed nearly everywhere he went during his visit to the U.S. was concerned with the issue of human rights, epitomized by the Chinese government's crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

Jiang did not refer to Tiananmen Square in his speech, but in his answer to a question on the crackdown, he made what some have viewed as a highly significant and unprecedented statement.

"It goes without saying that, naturally, we may have shortcomings and even make some mistakes in our work," Jiang said. "However, we have been working on a constant basis to further improve our work."

The press has leapt on the remark and many have interpreted it as an apology for the government crackdown in which many demonstrators were killed and many more were sent to prison. Merle Goldman, an associate of the John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, does not see the words as an apology, but she does agree that the use of such a phrase is unprecedented.

"That answer was the only thing about the speech that I found surprising," Goldman said. "Other Chinese officials have said things like that before, but never a top leader."

Goldman compared this remark with one that Jiang made two days before in a speech at the Asia Society in New York. At that time, he made the statement that "we cannot have modernization without democratization." She said that this phrase was identical to a statement made in 1979 by Wei Jing Sheng, China's most famous political prisoner, for which he was subsequently jailed.

"It could be that there's a learning process going on," Goldman said. "Maybe he's trying to present a more moderate image."

If the Chinese leadership has been undergoing a learning process, Goldman believes that Jiang's visit to Harvard has helped to accelerate it.

"Driving through the streets of Cambridge, he saw signs that said 'Down with Harvard' and 'Down with Clinton,' and yet the government still stands and Harvard is still strong. The great fear for Chinese leaders is that protest will cause the government to fall. I think this has been a good learning experience for them."