China has to pursue political reform to safeguard its economic health, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said during a visit to the booming town of Shenzhen, Xinhua news agency reported.
Wen’s call for political reform lacked specifics, but his comments reflect broader worries that unless the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 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.”
PHOTO: AFP
Wen said he 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 CCP 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 the government.
In Shenzhen, a small village that has exploded into a city of 14 million people in the last three decades, 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, the 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 said.
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
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
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
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