Hu Avoids Sweeping Reforms at Congress

By Joseph Kahn

President Hu Jintao of China promised Monday to address social fissures, a degraded environment and rampant corruption during his second term as China’s top leader, but all but ruled out more than cosmetic political reform.

Delivering the opening address at the ruling Communist Party’s 17th National Congress, Hu spoke extensively about his “scientific view of development,” a set of lofty, vague principles supporting harmonious economic, social and political development.

The congress will enshrine the phrase “scientific view of development” into the party’s constitution alongside the political slogans of Mao, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zemin, elevating Hu into the pantheon of Chinese leaders as he begins his second and final term as party general secretary, head of state and military chief.

This speech kicked off the weeklong event, held once every five years to extol past leaders and welcome a roster of younger officials newly elevated to leadership roles. Party members have described the succession contest, conducted in secret, as fractious. But the congress proceedings, which are purely ceremonial, present a facade of seamless unity and continuity.

In the main auditorium of the Great Hall of the People, under a giant hammer and sickle, Hu appeared on a rostrum with all the other members of the Politburo Standing Committee and the Central Committee arranged in precise hierarchical order. They were joined by party elders including Jiang, Hu’s direct predecessor, and at least two stalwarts of an earlier era, Wan Li and Song Ping, both more than 90 years old.

In keeping with tradition, Hu’s address, which lasted two and half hours, stressed the correctness of the rhetoric and guiding philosophies of the past. Though the text of the address ran to 64 pages, Hu discussed few specific government programs and provided only broad hints about what he intends to do between now and 2012, when under party retirement rules he will make way for a new top leader.

“China is going through a wide-ranging and deep-going transformation. This brings us unprecedented opportunities as well as unprecedented challenges,” Hu told the 2,200 party delegates and a national television audience. “On the whole, the opportunities outweigh the challenges.”

Hu tweaked one well-established goal, quadrupling the economic output of the year 2000 by 2020, saying that the party would now aim to increase per capita gross domestic product four-fold in the same period.

The switch to a per capita target reflects Hu’s emphasis on enhancing the benefits the Chinese people derive from economic growth. But given that China’s population will likely increase by about 200 million during the 20-year period, the new goal suggests that Hu now expects the economy, which has sustained double-digit growth for more than five years, to expand at an even faster pace than he and his predecessors did at the last party congress in 2002.

He called the international situation favorable to China, saying a “trend toward a multipolar world is irreversible.”

He also offered to hold peace talks with Taiwan, the self- governing island China claims as its territory, as long as the island’s leadership sets aside independence goals. The offer broke no new ground, but his tone was slightly softer than in the past.

In defining his program of “scientific development,” Hu discussed the growing gap between rich and poor. He said the economy still relies too much on investment and not enough on consumption to drive growth, and the leadership should do more to protect the environment.

“We must adopt an enlightened approach to development that results in expanded production, a better life and sound ecological and environmental conditions,” he said. “We need to correctly handle the major relationships between urban and rural development, economic and social development and man and nature.”

Hu repeatedly used the word democracy and said the party should become more responsive to the public. He also called for “intraparty democracy,” or allowing more party officials to participate in decision making.

He said corruption poses a threat to the party’s survival, a particularly resonant issue after the leadership purged the former Shanghai party boss, Chen Liangyu, in one of the highest-level corruption scandals in its history.

But Hu endorsed only incremental political change. He insisted on maintaining the party’s monopoly on power, saying the it must remain “the core” that “directs the overall situation and coordinates the efforts of all quarters.”

The proceedings got under way even as speculation mounted that the party elite was still negotiating membership in the new Politburo Standing Committee, the top governing body.

The leadership submitted a list people slated for top posts to the party’s Central Committee last week, party officials told about the closed-door proceedings said.

The list called for a nine-man Standing Committee headed by Hu, with three current members retiring. Two younger leaders, Xi Jinping, 54, party boss of Shanghai, and Li Keqiang, 52, party secretary of Liaoning Province, are expected to join the Standing Committee and inherit the top jobs when Hu steps down, these people said.

But one of the current members expected to retire to make way for the younger officials, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, was over the weekend named secretary general of the party congress, a position that historically signals inclusion in the Standing Committee for the coming term.

That suggests that Hu was either awarding an unusual perk to Zeng, who has been on the Standing Committee since the last party congress in 2002, or that the vice president, considered the second most powerful official in the party apparatus after Hu, may stay on for another term despite the fact that at 68, he is supposed to retire.

It also remained unclear whether the Central Committee, which will have the opportunity to vote on the leadership roster, will signal its disapproval for one or more senior leaders. While such dissenting votes are rare, low vote totals can force unpopular officials to step aside.

The final lineup will not be known for certain until Sunday, when the new Politburo Standing Committee makes its first joint public appearance to conclude the congress.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

(c) 2007 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.