Propaganda campaign cranks up

President Jiang Zemin: Turning diplomatic pain into gain

By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
CNN Senior China Analyst

(CNN) -- Aides to President Jiang Zemin have taken advantage of the diplomatic "victory" over the U.S. to start a nation-wide patriotic campaign highlighting the Communist Party's ability to handle tough global challenges.

The propaganda department's standard line over the resolution of the spy plane incident is: the successful "struggle" against the U.S. has again proven the ability of the Jiang-led party to "take the long view, act wisely, and handle complicated situations and problems."

This clause was repeated in a number of media commentaries throughout Thursday.

In the coming week, party, government and army units nation-wide are scheduled to hold ideological study sessions centering on two issues.

One is the importance of rallying behind the Jiang leadership at a time of new global challenges; the other is to concentrate on developing national strength, deemed the only guarantee that China will not be bullied.

The official media on Thursday began carrying the opinions of different social sectors on the success of Beijing's "righteous struggle" against the U.S.

The Xinhua news agency quoted a group of Beijing residents as saying: "The struggle has dealt a blow to the flames of hegemonism and protected the nation's sovereignty and the people's dignity."

The Liberation Army Daily cited remarks by officers from different divisions backing Beijing's tough stance against the U.S.

Triumph disputed

It is understood that the heads of different provinces and major cities would also join in the ritualistic profession of supporting the party central authorities.

"Jiang wants to take this opportunity to extract public declarations of allegiance from central and regional departments," a political source in Beijing said.

"However, he does not want nationalism to get out of hand and be exploited by hardliners. That's why he also wants to shift the focus back to economic development."

The substantial number of critical messages in Internet forums showed, however, that many Chinese were unconvinced of Beijing's diplomatic "triumph."

Official spokesmen and the media have all along refrained from delving into the controversy of whether Washington has really apologized.

Despite claims of a diplomatic coup, President Jiang wants to steer clear of hardline nationalism

All national media reported that the U.S. had expressed 'qianyi', or contrition, to the Chinese people. Their message was that this was tantamount to the formal apology that Beijing had always demanded.

No media reported the statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday that Washington had merely said "very sorry" and that there was no question of an apology because the U.S. had done nothing wrong.

Most internet forums and chatrooms carried messages criticizing the government for releasing the 24-member crew without having secured any concrete concessions from the Americans.

One posting in the Sina.com forum said: "An American old lady has just opened a bottle of champagne to welcome her son's return to the U.S. However, the parents and wife of [downed pilot] Wang Wei are crying bitterly."

Another posting said: "The U.S. just uttered a few shameful words of apology and our government released 24 pigs. This shows that the Chinese government is incompetent."

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