The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) opened a major four-day economic meeting in Beijing yesterday, with efforts to narrow the widening divide between rich and poor likely to dominate the agenda.
The plenary session of the party's central committee will "discuss suggestions" on the 2006-2010 five-year economic development plan, with a view toward "building a harmonious society," the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Against a background of widespread corruption and growing income disparities between rich and poor, President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has been emphasizing the "harmonious society" theme over the past year.
Last month, state media cited a government study as saying the most affluent one-fifth of China's population earns 50 percent of total income, with the bottom one-fifth taking home only 4.7 percent.
Reforms launched in 1978 have fueled decades of enormous economic development that have transformed Chinese society. Its economy grew by a blistering 9.5 percent in 2003 and last year.
But its rural population -- about 800 million people -- has for the most part been left out of the boom, and many in that group have been protesting widespread graft, industrial pollution and illegal seizures of land for development.
The protests have been growing in regularity and aggression.
Clashes between police and citizens are becoming more violence as thousands -- sometimes tens of thousands -- of unhappy laborers or farmers demonstrate to air their frustration.
Officers often beat and jail protesters, who are also growing bolder in their retaliation against authorities.
Last year, the government logged 74,000 major protests nationwide, a stunning figure in a country so determined to curb potential unrest that it puts dissidents under house arrest around sensitive political anniversaries and tightly watches Internet content.
The closed-door plenum at the Soviet-era Jingxi Hotel in Beijing will be a test of whether Hu, 62, has fully consolidated power after replacing Jiang Zemin (江澤民), 79, as Party chief in 2002, state president in 2003 and military chief last year.
It is Hu's first plenum without his influential predecessor holding some form of office, although Jiang has stacked the Party's upper echelons with his allies.
One focus will be on whether Hu can manoeuvre protege Li Keqiang (
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
SECOND SPEECH: All political parties should work together to defend democracy, protect Taiwan and resist the CCP, despite their differences, the president said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday discussed how pro-Taiwan and pro-Republic of China (ROC) groups can agree to maintain solidarity on the issue of protecting Taiwan and resisting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The talk, delivered last night at Taoyuan’s Hakka Youth Association, was the second in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. Citing Taiwanese democracy pioneer Chiang Wei-shui’s (蔣渭水) slogan that solidarity brings strength, Lai said it was a call for political parties to find consensus amid disagreements on behalf of bettering the nation. All political parties should work together to defend democracy, protect Taiwan and resist
By refusing to agree spending increases to appease US President Donald Trump, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez threatened to derail a summit that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte needs to run smoothly for the sake of the military alliance’s future survival. Ahead of yesterday’s gathering in The Hague, Netherlands, things were going off the rails. European officials have expressed irritation at the spoiler role that Sanchez is playing when their No. 1 task is to line up behind a pledge to raise defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. Rutte needed to keep Spain in line while preventing others such as Slovakia
RSS