The moment the mad boss steps off his Air China jet in Los Angeles this week on the first stage of a scheduled American tour, he knows he will be in the cross hairs of U.S. anger at China's dismal human-rights record and allegations of nuclear espionage. I will go to tell the truth. Relations between Washington and Beijing are frostier than they have been for years, and some in Congress are even talking as if China were the new cold war enemy. Having reached threescore and 10 years, Zhu should be resting on his achievements. But in fact he is taking on the weight of U.S.-China tensions just as his own economy is teetering on the edge of breakdown.
Time is short.
He could have been referring to his own life story, an ever more difficult struggle against the forces of disintegration, anarchy and corruption that could yet rip China apart. Zhu has a Rolodex memory, endless energy and an overpowering impatience. Above all, Zhu is a man in a hurry, with a mission to make up for lost time, both for himself and for China. Like China, Zhu lost two decades of his life as Mao pushed an already poor country into famine and industrial ruin in the 1960s and '70s. He is from a different shade of red than the standard communist cadre.