Murderous dictator.

An unethical tryant who uses america's dollar for nation building but at the same time opposes america!

Holy Mackrell!

Jiang Zemin is a very interesting leader of China. He is trying to make reforms to the economy of that country; communism has been a failure in China and he is being pushed by the world to turn China into a market economy. Let me put this all into context here and put this into a worldwide scale for China and all other emerging Third World countries. Right now in China there is a consumer revolution occuring, with that, there is tension because the old ways of life are changing. Zemin realizes that and he is working to make that transition into the market economy as smoothly as possible. China for almost its entire history has been a country that has been very isolationist; it will take a long time to rid it of those tendencies, but it is well on its way. This country also does things very differently than the United States. China was founded upon two major schools of thought; the Confusian school and the Legalist school. Basically, Legalists are much like conservatives in this country (big on law and order and low taxes for the rich) and Confusians believe that man is essentially good and can transcend evil only if they get a good education; this is more in line with liberal thought in this country. The United States and China have many similarities when it comes down to thought systems, but they have a very different way of organizing and carrying out a government. The Chinese do not have much respect for human rights, but that should not stop us from trading with that country. The country will open up more to Western ways if we trade with them more; human rights violations will not be as prevalent if they are a more open society. I believe there is plenty of common ground and issues which are of mutual interest between us and China; specifically economics. China has much to gain from the United States when it comes down to infusing much needed capital into the country to lift up the living standards of the country; the United States has much to gain by receiving access to one of the largest consumer markets in the world (1 billion people and rising). As for security interests, we no longer fear China because of the threat of a worldwide communist conspiracy; the issue now is keeping this power in check. China is going to be a world power in the 21st Century and it is best that we have amicable relations with this country, lest we get into a war with them that will cause instability worldwide. The closest step to creating a peace between the U.S. and China is making a new kind of peace; one of mutual interest. We both have much to gain, so let us not fight. I believe Zemin understands this and is working within these parameters to create a more constructive relationship with Washington.