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Jiang Zemin came from Yangzhou, the famed city of the Huai-Zuo region. From his youth he aspired to seek truth and threw himself into the surging tide of the people's revolutionary movement. In April 1946 he joined the Communist Party of China, and from then on devoted his life to the Party and the people.

On 30 July 1979, the National People's Congress approved the establishment of the Foreign Investment Administration Commission and the Import and Export Administration Commission of the People's Republic of China, tasked with planning, advancing and implementing the strategy of opening up to the outside world. On 24 January 1980, Jiang Zemin received orders to join the two commissions, serving first as secretary-general and later as vice-chairman and secretary-general of both. In the spring of 1982 the two commissions were merged into the newly established Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade. During his time with the commissions, Jiang Zemin earned wide respect and trust through his broad-mindedness and pragmatic work.

In the late spring and early summer of 1989, a serious political storm swept through the country. At an extremely sensitive moment, the Shanghai-based World Economic Herald organized a full page of articles aimed at the Party's principle of democratic centralism, with a pernicious impact. As the World Economic Herald was administered by the Shanghai Municipal Committee, the committee decided, following proper procedures, to suspend the paper for rectification. Jiang Zemin's decisive rectification of the World Economic Herald at a moment of crisis made him the focus of public opinion and drew attention from all quarters.

As China entered the 1990s, it confronted a mental obstacle that had to be overcome regarding the goal of economic restructuring that bore on the overall situation: how to view the relationship between planning and the market. For a time debate raged without end, but reality no longer permitted China to keep waiting amid the arguments. If reform could not take new steps, the country would miss its development opportunities. How could the deadlock be broken quickly? This difficult problem confronted the third generation of the Party's central collective leadership with Comrade Jiang Zemin at its core.

Beginning with China's first major railway speed-up in April 1997, railway construction entered a phase of rapid development and became an important symbol of the economy's high-speed, steady operation. Development is the absolute principle; Jiang Zemin always treated development as the Party's top priority in governing and rejuvenating the country. The series of strategies for national rejuvenation he put forward mapped out the layout of development for China at the turn of the century, innovated the mode of development, expanded the space for development, and built up reserves of momentum.

In leading China's revolution and construction, Mao Zedong once asked leading cadres to learn how to play the piano. It was a vivid metaphor meaning that, on the basis of getting the full picture, one should make overall plans, strike a comprehensive balance, highlight priorities and drive the whole situation forward. In his thirteen years of governing the country, Jiang Zemin vividly demonstrated the leadership art of playing the piano.

Statistics show that by the end of 1996 there were 15,700 large and medium-sized state-owned industrial enterprises with independent accounting nationwide, of which 37 percent were operating at a loss totaling 55.5 billion yuan. The sudden Asian financial crisis made things even worse for these enterprises. Jiang Zemin recognized that the lack of vitality in some state-owned enterprises was not due to ownership, but to problems of enterprise mechanism, the external environment and issues left over from history, problems that could be resolved step by step through deepened reform.

In 1989, the Fifth Plenary Session of the Thirteenth CPC Central Committee approved Deng Xiaoping's resignation as chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission and decided that Jiang Zemin would succeed him in the post. The people's army, tempered by sixty-two years of trials, gained a new commander-in-chief and embarked on a new journey of keeping pace with the times and forging ahead along the road of building a refined army with Chinese characteristics.

In April 1990, the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress reviewed and adopted the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, laying the legal cornerstone for governing Hong Kong in accordance with the law. With that, Hong Kong's return entered the latter transitional period. Carrying Deng Xiaoping's solemn entrustment, the third generation of the Party's central collective leadership with Comrade Jiang Zemin at its core historically took up the mission of realizing Hong Kong's smooth return.

During his thirteen years as the principal leader of the Party and the state, Jiang Zemin visited more than seventy countries. Under his leadership, China established diplomatic relations with thirty-four additional countries, bringing the total to more than 160. China played a constructive role in more than 130 intergovernmental international organizations and established the image of a responsible major country on the world stage.