Jiang Zemin (1926- )

After the Fourth Plenary Session of the Thirteenth Central Committee of the CPC, he served as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPC, Chairman of the Military Committee of the CPC Central Committee, Chairman of the People's Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the PRC. Jiang Zemin was born on August 17,1926 in the city of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. Since 1943, he participated in the student movement led by the underground Party work in the White areas and joined the CPC in April 1946. Jiang Zemin graduated in 1947 with a bachelor's degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering, of the Shanghai Jiaotong University in 1947.

After the liberation of Shanghai, he served successively as deputy engineer, chief of the works section and concurrently head of the power workshop, Party branch secretary and first deputy director of Shanghai Yimin No. 1 Foodstuff Factory, first deputy director of Shanghai Soap Factory, chief of the electrical machinery section of Shanghai No. 2 Design Division of the First Ministry of Machine-Building Industry.

In 1955, he went to the Soviet Union Stalin Automobile Factory in Moscow for internship. After returning to China in 1956, he worked as deputy chief of the dynamic mechanics division, deputy chief engineer for dynamic mechanics of the First Automobile Plant in Changchun and director of the power factory in the plant. After 1962, he served successively as deputy director of the Shanghai Electrical Equipment Research Institute under the First Ministry of Machine-Building Industry, director and acting Party committee secretary of the Wuhan Heat-Power Machinery Institute under the Ministry, deputy director-general and director-general of the Foreign Affairs Bureau of the First Ministry of Machine- Building Industry.

After 1980, he served as vice-chairman and concurrently secretary-general of the State Administration Commission on Import and Export Affairs and the State Administration Commission on Foreign Investment and a member of the Leading Party Members' Groups of the two commissions.Jiang Zemin was elected as a Member of the Central Committee at the 12th National Congress of the CPC in 1982. After 1982, he served as first vice-minister and deputy secretary of the Leading Party Members' Group of the Ministry of Electronics Industry and minister and secretary of the Leading Party Members' Group of the Ministry.

After 1985, he became mayor of Shanghai, deputy secretary and Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China. In 1987, at the 13th National Congress of the CPC, Jiang Zemin was elected as a member of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee. After the 4th Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee in June 1989, he served as the member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPC, the Chairman of the Military Commission of the Central Committee of the CPC, the Chairman of the PRC and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

On February 25, 2002, during the inspection work in Guangdong, he published a speech on “How can our Party achieve ‘Three Represents’ under the new historical conditions?” which was based on a profound summary of the historical experience of the CPC, he proposed and comprehensively expounded the important thinking of the "Three Represents" and emphasized that the Party must always represent the development requirements of China's advanced productive forces, represent the direction of China's advanced culture, and represent the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. The important thought of “Three Represents” further deepened the answers to the questions of what socialism is and how to build socialism.

He put forward the idea of ensuring, safeguarding and developing the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, regarded development as the first priority to ensure Party's rule and rejuvenating the country, building a well-off society in an all-round way, adhering to and perfecting the basic economic system in which socialist public ownership is the main body and multi-ownership economy develops in tandem. He advocated adhering to and perfecting the distribution system with distribution according to work as the main way and its coexistence with other various modes of distribution, establishing the socialist market economic system, promoting the strategic adjustment of economic structure and the transformation of economic growth mode, he advocated the ideas of building socialist political civilization and developing socialist democratic politics, implementing the basic strategy of ruling the country according to law, building a socialist country ruled by law, and the idea of developing advanced socialist culture, and so forth.

The important thought of “Three Represents” creatively answered the questions of what kind of Party to build and how to build the CPC , in the new era, under the historical conditions of its long-term rule; he deepened the understanding of socialism with Chinese characteristics and deepened the understanding on the law (regularity) of enhancing Party building. The important thought of “Three Represents” placed emphasis on strengthening and improving the Party's construction in the spirit of reform and solving two following critical historic issues: improving the Party's leadership quality and its ruling capacity and increase its capability of fighting corruption and guarding against degeneration and guarding against risks and make unremitting efforts to combat corruption.

Jiang Zemin pointed out that the CPC is the vanguard of the Chinese working class, the Chinese people and the Chinese nation at the same time, he upheld the idea of building and establishing the Party for the public and governing for the interest of people, constantly advancing in the path of Sinicizating Marxism, he further strengthened the thought of building the Party's governing capacity, and vigorously cultivating loyalty to Marxism and firmness. He emphasized vigorously cultivating leading cadres who are ideologically loyal to Marxism, who adhere to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and who are be able to govern the Party and the state, he stressed the need to stress study, stress politics, stress righteousness and put forward the idea of giving first priority to strictly self-governance of the Party. These new ideas, viewpoints and assertions of Jiang Zemin which are closely related and interlinked, constitute a systematic scientific theory, which has opened up a new realm for the development of Marxist theory, and served as a model for the application of Marxist standpoints, viewpoints and methods under new historical conditions. The 16th National Congress of the CPC in November 2002 has decided that the important thought of "Three Represents" together with Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory as the guiding ideology, which the Party must adhere to for a long time to come, thus realized another step forward in our Party's guiding ideology advancing with the times. Jiang Zemin’s major works are collected in Collected Works of Jiang Zemin.