Jiang Zemin Speech Lottery Ends

The lottery for tickets to hear Chinese President Jiang Zemin in his tentative Nov. 1 visit to Harvard closed on Thursday with more than 1,000 ticket requests.

Requests were made over e-mail and admission to his expected speech was restricted to Harvard students, faculty and staff.

University spokesperson Joe Wrinn said that Harvard has gone ahead with "logistical plans" such as the creation of the lottery "on the assumption that [Jiang] is in fact coming."

However, while an official at the National Security Council has confirmed that Boston is a stop on Jiang's speaking tour, Harvard has offered no official confirmation of his visit.

Officials at the National Security Council and at the State Department said that they do not yet know the details of the Boston visit.

In an interview, Ken Bailes, a spokesperson for the State Department, said Jiang's schedule "isn't clear right now," but added that he would probably know more later in the week.

Lack of confirmation, however, did not stop droves of requests from pouring into the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, which conducted the lottery.

Though Jiang's visit is controversial, many students said they approve of Harvard's decision to invite the Chinese leader.

Kathrine A. Meyers '98, editor-in-chief of the Harvard Asia Pacific Review, said she thought it was "pretty ridiculous" to object to the visit.

"There's nothing wrong with it," she said. "He's the head of state of one of the largest, most important, most powerful nations in the world. Whenever there exists a problem between nations, or individuals, open dialogue is the best approach.

"Historically, China has been resistant to such high-level interactions. Therefore President Jiang's visit needs to be seized as an opportunity to advance relations, rather than to stifle them."

Meyers added that she was "very excited" at the chance to hear Jiang speak.

Jiang addressed one potential source of protest in recent interviews with U.S. news organizations.

In interviews with Time Magazine and the Washington Post, he insisted that China's 1.2 billion inhabitants enjoy more rights that ever before, contrary to the assertions of human-rights advocates.

He went on to apply Einstein's theory of relativity to human rights, claiming that the term was not absolute.

But there are members of the Harvard community who object to President Jiang's visit. Among them are students in the Taiwanese Cultural Society (TCS).

TCS Co-President Chienlan Hsu '99, who had earlier said that the TCS would protest Jiang's appearance in an attempt to encourage Jiang to "recognize Taiwan as another country," declined to comment yesterday.