China's Premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基) pledged yesterday to fight rural poverty, support the urban unemployed and stamp out official corruption and waste as he began his final year in government office.
Zhu, in a speech to China's National People's Congress (NPC), highlighted the biggest threats to the Communist Party's grip on power as China braces for its first full year in the WTO in the run-up to a sensitive leadership change.
The straight-talking premier lambasted corrupt and wasteful bureaucrats who wined and dined while farmers toiled under crippling local government levies and retrenched workers struggled to survive without social security benefits.
In his work report to the annual two-week session of the NPC, Zhu also stressed the need for stable relations with Taiwan before the leadership change by pledging to expand political and economic exchanges.
And he promoted a controversial plan put forward by President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) to allow private entrepreneurs into the Communist Party in a bid to make it more relevant to modern China.
Zhu, Jiang and NPC chief Li Peng (李鵬) are expected to step down from their Communist Party posts at a five-yearly congress later this year and will leave their government jobs at the NPC in 2003.
"The year 2002 is a very important year in the development of our party and country," Zhu told the meeting of some 3,000 legislators from across China in the Great Hall of the People.
"China's accession to WTO benefits its reform and opening up and its economic development as a whole, but in the short term, less competitive industries and enterprises face significant challenges," Zhu said.
Analysts say the government needs to deliver growth of around 7 percent a year to create enough jobs to deter social upheaval as an onslaught of foreign competition following China's WTO entry threatens to put tens of millions out of work.
Zhu said the key to growth in 2002 was boosting domestic demand by raising the incomes of rural and urban poor.
"The most pressing task is to ensure that subsistence allow-ances for laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises and basic pensions for retirees are paid on time and in full," he said.
Redundant workers and pensioners have held increasingly frequent and angry protests over inadequate welfare support while farmers have attacked local officials for imposing random levies.
In the countryside, a pilot project to replace the levies with a flat tax would be expanded to key provinces, Zhu said.
His speech struck a chord with delegates worried about how China's industry and agriculture will cope with WTO membership.
Analysts said Zhu's speech addressed concerns that the party had forsaken farmers and workers in favor of the business elite.
"Particularly the rural incomes, I think, is going to be the big thing, because of all the criticism that the party is deviating," said one Western diplomat who listened to the speech.
"You have concerns about party stability, you have concerns about social stability and therefore you have to look at ways of reducing the impact of WTO accession on ... the economy."
Zhu also called for direct trade, transport and postal links with Taiwan, reflecting Beijing's softer line on the island this year.
"We are working to further expand the cross-Strait economic and cultural exchanges and develop cross-strait relations so as to establish the `three direct links' as soon as possible," he said.
Zhu repeated Beijing's precondition for official negotiations -- that Taiwan accept the "one China" principle.
But in another conciliatory gesture, he defined the principle as "There is only one China in the world and the Chinese mainland and Taiwan both belong to one China" -- implying equal status.
Previous definitions asserted that Beijing was the only legitimate government of a single China that included Taiwan.
Zhu did not repeat Beijing's threat to invade Taiwan if it declared independence or dragged its feet on unification.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique