Jiang to take important train ride in Japan

By Edward Neilan
Special to World Tribune.com

TOKYO--Chinese President Jiang Zemin's ride on a Shinkansen ("bullet train") between Tokyo and Sendai will be the most important event during his visit to Japan this week (Nov. 25-30).

Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi wants to rev up Jiang's interest in purchasing Japanese technology for the Chinese high speed rail project linking the population-dense Beijing-Shanghai corridor, due to begin in 2000.

A French-German consortium is the main competitor for the US$30 billion job. Europeans have shut out the Japanese in similar projects in South Korea and Taiwan.

Much of the track on the Beijing-Shanghai line--touted eventually to become the world's most heavily traveled---is still the same that was used for Marlene Dietrich's famous ride on the "Shanghai Express." In that 1932 film by Erich Von Stromberg, Dietrich murmured the now-classic line "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lil."

Jiang is not likely to say anything so memorable on his ride to Sendai; a simple "yes" to the Japanese rail plan will do will do.

The promise of Japan-China economic cooperation is awesome. Remember that right now, Japan's gross national product (GNP) amounts to nearly two-thirds of Asia's total economic production while China's GNP is the second biggest, at 10 percent. South Korea and Thailand are only in the "others" category.

While some pundits and academics are straining their cerebrum cortexes to find political, ideological and strategic meaning in the Jiang visit, the economic implications for the future are overriding.

Several accords on pollution and administrative help for small an midsize Chinese companies are extremely important.

Of course, the visit will not be completely devoid of high-visibility political showmanship.

Jiang may be slow in introducing democracy to the world's most populous nation but he is up to date in utilizing some other Western-style political devices.

Hong Kong and Japanese business executives with close ties to Jiang from his days as Shanghai mayor have confirmed that Jiang recently has set up a coterie of public relations specialists or "spin doctors" to shape his image positively both domestically and internationally.

(The term "spin doctor" is slang for someone who adds a particular spin or viewpoint to an act or policy. It gained popular usage in Washington D.C. in the United States because of the habit of President Bill Clinton administration operatives giving "spin" to controversial issues.)

The "spin doctors" were in full gear over the "postponement" of the September 6-11 date of Jiang's visit to Japan and then "rescheduling" for this week.

Originally viewed as a quick follow-up to the Clinton summer visit to China , Jiang postponed his Japan visit, citing "floods" in China.

Skeptics in Japan felt the postponement was more because China had failed to win Japan's approval for the three "three nos" security policy. But political insiders believed it was more Japanese reluctance to increase the size of its loan package to China that resulted in the postponement.

Because preparations for the visit took place at the end of the administration of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, the Chinese spin doctors believed China would win more concession on both security issues and loans dealing with a new prime minister.

Hashimoto had become testy about tabloid allegations of his alleged affair with a Chinese spy and he did not want to appear soft on China.

Jiang was seen at home as presidentially looking after flood victims, but not taking the blame for deforestation and lack of preparation that caused the widespread damage.

The floods gave both an excuse for the delay and a reason to ask for more loan funds to aid flood victims. Plus the bonus of dealing with a new prime minister thought to be interested in making a fresh start with China.

Neither Jiang nor his spin doctors reckoned with the North Korean missile shot Aug. 31. This event stiffened Japanese resolve on security matters, including more receptiveness to the U.S.-backed Theater Missile Defense (TMD) concept. Then world economic pressure on Japan heightened and Tokyo's position hardened on the loans, despite the appeals for flood relief.

Thus the spin doctors' first major effort boomeranged.

China, despite blustering about Japan's wartime past and security closeness to the U.S. which may affect Taiwan, is coming hat in hand on the loan issue. Beijing needs the loans to continue its "growth" and to back up its insistence that it won't devalue the renminbi.

Japan is to extend about US$3 billion in new loans to China in the1999-2001 period, compared with the approximately US$5 billion earmarked for the previous three-year period.

There have always been people in the mainland Chinese apparatus who were supposed to take care of public relations. Internationally, the task was to make the somber pronouncements of the Communist Party Propaganda Department more palatable to foreign audiences.

But not until Jiang's visit to the U.S. last year did the concept take on such emphasis leading to Jiang's appointment of a group of public relations advisers or "spin doctors."

His coaching sessions by Harvard Professor Ezra Vogel and U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein prior to appointments in America convinced Jiang of the value of U.S.-style public relations.