Tiger on the Brink: Jiang Zemin and China's New Elite

When Deng Xiaoping died in 1997, his unlikely heir as China's principal leader was the former mayor of Shanghai, a middle-level leader who seemingly came from nowhere to occupy a position of central importance to the world. Bruce Gilley, a writer for the Far Eastern Economic Review, traces the life of Jiang Zemin, the adopted son of a hero of the Chinese revolution who himself took part in demonstrations against the nationalist government before joining the Communist party and assuming a series of posts. Removed from power during the Cultural Revolution, which he would later call "a period of unprecedented destruction," Jiang became a cautious critic of the old-line regime, rising to prominence only in the aftermath of the Tienanmen Square demonstrations of 1989. In the 1990s, Gilley maintains, Jiang helps preserve something of the Communist status quo while opening the government to younger reformers--who, Gilley suggests, will exert some pressure on the Chinese government to democratize, a pressure that government is likely to resist. --Gregory McNamee