China Government Officials

Chinese President Jiang Zemin said Sunday that he wants to see China and the United States seize on a recent improvement in their rocky relationship as a foundation for long-term healthy ties. "China and the United States are two big countries and as such have a major responsibility for maintaining the peace and stability in the world," state television quoted Jiang as telling visiting Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).

The children of three renowned Communist statesmen have failed to win election as delegates to a crucial party congress, sources said. Deng Nan, daughter of late "paramount leader" Deng Xiaoping, failed to win election as a delegate to the 15th Communist Party Congress, a party source said. Her failure to win a place reflected unhappiness among party members at the rise to prominence of many "princelings"--a nickname given to the offspring of China's most senior party officials.

Returning to a triumphant mainland as the first Chinese head of state over Hong Kong in more than 150 years, President Jiang Zemin hailed the start of a new chapter for his reunited country Tuesday and pledged that the former British colony will shine even brighter under Chinese rule.

The plot of "Wrath of Heaven" would do any Hollywood screenwriter proud. Full of corruption and intrigue, the novel chronicles the investigation of a high-ranking Chinese official snarled in a web of deceit, bribery and graft. The scandal is so serious that an associate kills himself. Or is it murder? The 492-page potboiler, written by a pseudonymous author, is a hot item in the Chinese capital these days--and not just because it's selling briskly.

Consider the disappointment of Huaibei, a gritty coal mining city in China's impoverished Anhui province. City leaders here haven't completely given up hope, but they feel spurned by their unlikely sister city, Springdale, Ark. Six years ago, the governor of Arkansas, one Bill Clinton, nominated Springdale, pop. 39,000, to be sister city to Huaibei, pop. 1.8 million. "Springdale has many ties with China," he wrote, "and is looking to expand its economic and cultural relationships."

The delegation from China's Ministry of Construction strolled through the model homes in Huntington Beach, knocking on walls, peering inside cabinets and generally soaking up all the amenities of the upscale Southern California development. Their unanimous verdict: Americans "have a very good standard of living."

The delegation from China's Ministry of Construction strolled through the model homes here, knocking on walls, peering inside cabinets and generally soaking up all the amenities of the upscale Southern California development. Their unanimous verdict: Americans "have a very good standard of living."

Finally, it was Jiang Zemin's time to stand alone. Tense, emotional, stopping to dab tears from his eyes, Jiang, 70, China's president and Communist Party leader and commander in chief of the world's largest army, delivered the eulogy for "paramount leader" Deng Xiaoping on Tuesday in the Great Hall of the People. That Jiang was chosen to head Deng's funeral committee and deliver the farewell oration before the 10,000 assembled members of the Communist Party elite already meant something.

People remember Chairman Mao Tse-tung for this famous dictum: "Power comes from the barrel of a gun." Mostly forgotten, however, is the second part of the quotation: "The party commands the guns. It is unacceptable that the guns command the party." It is an axiom of modern Chinese history that controlling the nearly 3-million-strong People's Liberation Army is key to holding power in the Communist state.

From the office suites of Monterey Park to the holiday-festooned streets of San Francisco's Chinatown, word of the death of Chinese senior leader Deng Xiaoping reverberated with the impact of a titan felled. There may have been little surprise--he had been sick so long, after all--but Deng's death evoked throughout California's vast Chinese community the sort of talk reserved for the truly awesome forces of history.