Premier Wen urges political reform within the PRC

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China's Wen Jiabao says 'reforms urgent'

China's Premier Wen Jiabao has delivered a strong warning about the ''urgent'' need for reforms, without which, he said, tragedies such as the Cultural Revolution could still happen.

He was speaking after his last National People's Congress news conference.

He added that China's decision to cut its economic growth target to 7.5% for 2012 was essential to sustain growth.

He also spoke on US-China trade links, relations with Taiwan and said that China would step up currency reform.

He stressed that China needed to press on with both political and economic reforms.

Reforms, he added, had to be ''gradual and orderly'' and were essential for the country's economy.

This was the last NPC meeting before a leadership transition begins later this year. Mr Wen opened the meetings last week with a speech that cut the economic growth target and addressed land and military issues.

The once-in-a-decade transfer of power will begin in October. Vice-President Xi Jinping is widely expected to take over the party leadership from President Hu Jintao, and Vice-Premier Li Keqiang is tipped to succeed Mr Wen.

Mr Wen was speaking to both domestic and foreign journalists after the closing of the parliament session.

Responding to a question, he said that the desire for democracy in the Middle East must be ''respected and truly responded to''.

''I believe this trend towards democracy cannot be held back by any force," he said.

However, the series of self-immolations in Tibet, he said, were ''extreme''.

A number of people including monks, mostly in southwest Tibetan areas of China, have set themselves on fire in protest over Chinese rule in Tibet. Activists and rights groups say at least 19 have died.

'Sorry' for problems
As he began the news conference, he was visibly emotional, saying that he was ''sorry'' for economic and social problems in the last decade.

As the leader of the country, he said, he ''should assume responsibility'' for the problems in the country during his time in office.

"There is still room for improvement in my work," said the leader who is heading into his last year as premier.

Premier Wen is often referred to as "Grandpa Wen" in China, says the BBC's Martin Patience in Beijing.

He is seen as the people's champion and is known - in public at least - for his humility, says our correspondent.

In the three-hour news conference, he addressed questions ranging from domestic issues such as housing prices and the controversial incident involving senior Chongqing policeman Wang Lijun.

Mr Wang, who spent a day at the US consulate in southwest China, sparking speculation he was seeking asylum, was removed from his post and was said to be on leave because of "stress".

Mr Wen said local authorities must ''seriously'' reflect and learn from the incident. Beijing regarded this ''very seriously'' and progress has been made in ongoing investigations, he added.

On US-China trade, he said he would like to expand US imports and increase two-way investments.

On cross-straits relations with Taiwan, he said that he was pleased with the progress, but would like to see stronger economic ties, including encouraging banks in China and Taiwan to invest in each other.

On the Chinese currency, he said that the yuan may be nearing an ''equilibrium'' and pledged to allow the yuan to float more freely as part of its efforts to reform its currency policy.

At the conclusion of the parliament session earlier, lawmakers voted on government work reports and budgets and passed amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law that sets out police powers to detain dissidents.

The official Xinhua news agency reported that the Chinese parliament adopted the country's plan for national economic and social development and the budget.

The changes to the criminal law that some critics say could legalise secret detention was passed with a vast majority of some 3,000 delegates voting for in favour. Others say the revisions would limit the police's power to carry out such detentions.

This law follows a spate of detentions of high-profile dissidents last year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17362644

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It's about time to China finally reveal its true capitalist face once and for all.

James Kennedy wrote:

1. The ruling elite has become detached from the people and are collaborating with capitalists to use the state for their own gains.

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I think that option number two is terribly un-Marxist, because even if you believe that the end justifies the means, the means will modify your end, that's basic dialectics; your praxis will determine your horizon of choices, especially if incorporated in an irrational system like capitalism, which deprives us of real choice.

praxicoide wrote:

Sort of, yes. There's that danger, and I think that they've gone beyond the point when they can pull the brakes on the thing.

"Everything solid, melts into air." Even if you have a market with restrictions, the market will permeate everything, like water on a sugarcube. Those restrictions will evaporate through corruption and through the justifications for more reform "because the market conditions require it" (fetishism).

That's the dialectical moment per excellence.What is derived, what is created, becomes the creator, in that everything else must derive from it and owes its existence from it. Namely, because the market establishes that relations have to go through things, then we increasingly depend on these things to carry out these relations, to produce, to regulate, etc. And though at first you have big non-market institutions in control, very soon they will function only to preserve the market they created, and function successfully only to the extent that the market is successful.

This means that in the end your "socialist system" will fuction for the reproduction of this market, and be incapable from turning away from it. No bureaucrat will want to break away from it.

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And though at first you have big non-market institutions in control, very soon they will function only to preserve the market they created, and function successfully only to the extent that the market is successful.

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the revolution isn't even called a socialist revolution in China, it's officially termed "democratic revolution", a unified effort by the proletariat, the peasants, and the national bourgeoisie to overthrow the forces of feudalism, imperialism, and bureaucratic capital, and establish a democratic regime. (you can laugh at this if you want, but that's how it portrayed at the time)

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So yeah, I would say China today is closer to communism than it was in Mao's time.

James Kennedy wrote:

China has never been through capitalism, it was an extremely backward, essentially feudalistic, society before the revolution, indeed, the revolution isn't even called a socialist revolution in China, it's officially termed "democratic revolution", a unified effort by the proletariat, the peasants, and the national bourgeoisie to overthrow the forces of feudalism, imperialism, and bureaucratic capital, and establish a democratic regime. (you can laugh at this if you want, but that's how it portrayed at the time)

Even today, China is still very backward, 50% of the population is rural, GDP per capita (PPP) is lower than that of Jamaica, many parts of the society and the culture still bear the marks of feudalism. I would say that the system that existed between 1953 - 1978 were more of an emergency measure using state power to concentrate limited available resource in vital areas (armament and heavy industry) to ensure national survival, rather than genuine socialism. The resemblance to socialism was superficial, the absence of private property could not hide the fact that the economy was predominately agricultural and there was shortage of virtually everything except for people and political slogans.

Right now, the market is rapidly consuming the entire country, and maybe, when capitalism has destroyed everything that is old, the conditions for a true post-capitalist society will arise. So yeah, I would say China today is closer to communism than it was in Mao's time.

JAM wrote:

Russia before the bolshevik revolution had never been through capitalism either and was also an extremely backward society. Nevertheless, they were able to develop the country into a superpower status under socialist patterns. China also had a good start under the first five years economic plan, it worked very efficiently and the economic growth was consolidated. The problem was when Mao cancelled the second five years economic plan to put in works something that was never tried before (Great Leap forward), causing an enormous disaster to the chinese economy. If he had kept strictly to the soviet patterns of economic development the socialism in China would have been successful as it was in USSR. He wanted China to surpass USSR as the communist leading power in few years and started to invent new formulas which revealed to be disastrous to China's economic life. That is why socialism it didn't work out in China at the time.

James Kennedy wrote:

The Soviet model was not all that sustainable though, the economic growth almost depended entirely on increase in capital investment. During Stalin's time, there was significant room for the increase in capital investment, so the economy grew at a rapid rate, but capital investment cannot grow indefinitely, there is a limit, once that limit is reached, it has to be replaced by something else, or the economy would stagnate as it did in the Soviet Union. However, no one actually has any idea what the new model is suppose to be like, because it has never existed, and that's the tricky bit.

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Sort of, yes. There's that danger, and I think that they've gone beyond the point when they can pull the brakes on the thing.

"Everything solid, melts into air." Even if you have a market with restrictions, the market will permeate everything, like water on a sugarcube. Those restrictions will evaporate through corruption and through the justifications for more reform "because the market conditions require it" (fetishism).

That's the dialectical moment per excellence.What is derived, what is created, becomes the creator, in that everything else must derive from it and owes its existence from it. Namely, because the market establishes that relations have to go through things, then we increasingly depend on these things to carry out these relations, to produce, to regulate, etc. And though at first you have big non-market institutions in control, very soon they will function only to preserve the market they created, and function successfully only to the extent that the market is successful.

This means that in the end your "socialist system" will fuction for the reproduction of this market, and be incapable from turning away from it. No bureaucrat will want to break away from it.

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Sure, capitalism had to happen in China. But capitalism has indeed happened, and it's been happenin' for almost 40 years