Posted on 10/24/2002 1:03:10 PM PDT by weegee
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
Chinese President Jiang Zemin walked through a life-sized model of a space shuttle and dined with Houston's business and political elite during a Wednesday visit choreographed to avoid the protesters who had sought to line his path.
The day culminated with a $500-a-plate dinner for 800 sponsored by the Greater Houston Partnership and the Asia Society, where Jiang gave a 10-minute speech praising Houston's two-decade business links with China.
"History tells us that friendly and cooperative relations between China and the United States will not only generate great benefits to the two peoples, but also contribute in a powerful way to peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large," Jiang told the Inter-Continental Hotel audience including former President Bush, James A. Baker III and other dignitaries.
Jiang even drew a few laughs, teasing Baker for putting on some weight since he was secretary of state and congratulating Mayor Lee Brown on the arrival of Chinese basketball star Yao Ming as a player with the Rockets.
"Mr. Mayor, I also want to take this opportunity to wish the Houston Rockets be the champions in the National Basketball Association," he said.
Bush, who was U.S. ambassador to China in the mid-1970s, said he has visited China a dozen times since leaving the presidency and is grateful Jiang has kept U.S.-Chinese relations on a sound track.
"The U.S.-China relationship is perhaps the most important bilateral relationship in the world when it comes to trade and world peace," Bush said. "It is absolutely essential to our own interest and I think to China's, too, that this relationship stay strong and firm."
The dinner, like the earlier visit to the Johnson Space Center, was held in such a way so Jiang would not hear or see the thousands of protesters who came from around the world.
His motorcade took unusual routes and dropped him off at rear entrances to avoid the placard-carrying critics whose ranks included dissident Chinese, Falun Gong followers, Tibetans protesting China's 50-year occupation of their country and Taiwanese who fear their island may be next.
The protesters are expected to follow Jiang to College Station, where he will speak today at Texas A&M University. He then goes to Crawford Friday for a meeting at President Bush's ranch.
Even though demonstrators were kept away from Jiang, some of those who occupied nearly a quarter-mile stretch in front of his Galleria-area hotel said they hoped he might at least hear their chanting or pull back the curtain for a glimpse of their condemnation of his government's policies.
"I want him to look outside to see all the enemies against him, so he won't be able to sleep in peace," Wei Jingsheng, a Chinese dissident now living in exile in New York, said through a translator. He joined the crowd near the Inter-Continental Hotel.
Others took it as a small victory that they forced the Chinese president to take back routes to avoid them.
"I would like Jiang to see the banners, but if he doesn't, it's OK," said Yiyang Xia, 50, a Falun Gong practitioner who waited outside JSC before Jiang's afternoon visit there. "He's definitely aware of them or he wouldn't have to sneak in the back door."
Falun Gong members held by far the largest protest, including some who had protested in Chicago during Jiang's stop there Tuesday. The Chinese government, which considers Falun Gong a cult, has jailed and tortured thousands of practitioners and killed perhaps hundreds more, according to a U.S. State Department report.
Not content to keep their protests earthbound, practitioners commissioned an airplane to fly over downtown Houston pulling a sign with the message "Falun Gong is Great."
Some Tibetans protested Chinese plans to build a cross-country pipeline, claiming that it will harm their people. Exxon Mobil Corp. has a contract to help run the pipeline.
"We don't want Chinese oil and gas pipelines through Tibet," said Migmar Gyalnub, a Tibetan living in Portland, Ore. "They are using all our natural resources -- taking them off."
On his 11:30 a.m. arrival at Ellington Field, Jiang was warmly welcomed by Brown and other dignitaries, along with about 200 Chinese-American adherents carrying flowers and flags.
Brown presented Jiang a key to the city.
"I want Houston to become the place of choice when China thinks of a place to relate to for trade, commerce and tourism," Brown said. "This visit will strengthen the strong bond we already have."
Except for brief moving closures of freeways on Jiang's route -- usually lasting about five minutes -- his visit had little impact on traffic, said Fred Heller, director of operations for Metro Traffic.
Security at the Inter-Continental was tight. Federal agents used dogs to search cars and delivery trucks entering the hotel grounds.
Well-dressed dignitaries attending the dinner with Jiang were checked before entering the hotel to dine on filet mignon and sea bass.
It was a different Texas welcome from that given in 1979 to the last Chinese leader to visit Houston, Deng Xiaoping. He was whisked to the countryside to watch a rodeo, eat barbecue ribs and drink beer with Houston leaders.
Texas politicians were not quite so friendly in that visit, which came just after a normalization of U.S.-China relations. Then-Mayor Jim McConn refused to offer Deng a key to the city, declaring his support for Taiwan instead.
Chronicle reporters Dale Lezon, Roma Khanna, Lucas Wall and Rad Sallee contributed to this article.
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