China Premier Wen calls for political reform: report
BEIJING |
Sun Aug 22, 2010 1:12am EDT
BEIJING
(Reuters) - China has to pursue political reform to safeguard its
economic health, Premier Wen Jiabao said during a visit to the booming
town of Shenzhen, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Wen's call for political reform
lacked specifics. But his comments reflect broader worries that unless
the Party embraces at least limited reforms to make officials more
answerable, then corruption and abuses may erode the country's economic
prospects. "Without the
safeguarding of political restructuring, China may lose what it has
already achieved through economic restructuring and the targets of its
modernization drive might not be reached," Wen was quoted by Xinhua as
saying. "People's democratic rights
and legitimate rights must be guaranteed. People should be mobilized
and organized to deal with, in accordance with the law, state, economic,
social and cultural affairs," Wen added. Wen
also wants to "create conditions" to allow the people to criticize and
supervise the government as a way to address "the problem of
over-concentration of power with ineffective supervision." Wen
has developed a reputation as the member of China's ruling Communist
Party leadership most sympathetic to relaxing some of the country's
top-down controls. Wen will retire
as premier in early 2013. He has used recent speeches and comments to
indicate that he wants to spend his final years in office focused on
improving social welfare, promoting more balanced and equitable economic
growth, and addressing public discontent with government. In
Shenzhen, a small village that exploded into a city of 14 million
people in the last three decade, Wen said the Shenzhen story showed that
reforming and opening up to the outside world "is the only road to
achieving national prosperity and the people's happiness." "Regression
and stagnation will not only end the achievements of the three-decade
old reform and opening-up drive and the rare opportunity of development,
but also suffocate the vitality of China's socialist cause with her own
characteristics," the premier added. (Reporting by Chris Buckley, editing by Miral Fahmy)
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