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Students at Hong Kong’s Scientia Secondary School watch a memorial service for late Chinese leader Jiang Zemin © Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images
Chinese state media emphasized Jiang Zemin’s credentials as a Marxist “revolutionary” as a state memorial for the former leader opened, and official organs struck a delicate balance in commemorating one of the country’s most powerful figures at the memorial service.
“Comrade Jiang Zemin was an outstanding leader … He was a great Marxist, proletarian revolutionary, politician, militarist, diplomat and a well-tested communist soldier,” read a front-page editorial on Tuesday in the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party.
China faces a delicate task in honoring Jiang without appearing too starkly at odds with current President Xi Jinping, who has continued to centralize power by securing an unprecedented third term in October.
“The party, the army and the people . . . feel boundless sorrow . . . we love and honor Comrade Jiang because he gave his life and spirit for the Chinese people,” Xi said at a memorial service on Tuesday.
Jiang’s body was cremated Monday at the Baboshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing after being transferred from Shanghai. Xi and other senior leaders paid their last respects to Jiang in a ceremony that day.
On Tuesday, China honored the former leader with a live-streaming memorial service from Beijing’s Great Hall of the People and a three-minute silence in several cities, including Shanghai, where Jiang was party secretary, accompanied by siren wails.
The memorial proceedings were also notable for the presence of Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, who was escorted out of the Great Hall of the People in front of party members and the world media at China’s Party Congress in October. Hu’s ouster fueled speculation that he was being kicked out of the party.
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