China's Wen vows reform, protection for farmers
Premier Wen Jiabao Wen effectively declared the debate over after a 10-day session of Parliament, saying the world's fastest-growing major economy was firmly on the road to reform and there would be no turning back.
"To be resolute is to unwaveringly push forward reform and opening up and take a Socialist path with Chinese characteristics," Wen told a news conference. "There will be difficulties as we move ahead, but we cannot stop. Back-pedaling offers no way out."
The ruling Communist Party was riven by arguments in the early 1990s over whether to continue the policy of liberalization begun by Deng the previous decade. But he kept the country firmly on a reform path with a tour to the booming southern province of Guangdong in 1992.
This year's parliamentary debate was not about whether to reform, but rather about the pace of liberalization, rising social inequality blamed by critics on reforms and complaints about foreign influence on the country's booming economy.
Wen sought to allay fears of the growing foreign presence in China's banking system, saying the government must maintain "absolute control" of state-owned banks to minimize the risk of losses while the financial system is being reformed.
The head of the National Bureau of Statistics, Li Deshui, told Reuters last week that foreigners had gained a strong foothold in the economy and that China should act to prevent more domestic firms falling prey to multinationals.
Analysts believe the small, but vocal, opposition will not fundamentally alter China's direction of pursuing reform but could slow it. The debate has already forced a property rights law that was to have been approved this year off the agenda.
But, in an acknowledgement of the social strains that have come with rapid development, Wen vowed to punish officials who forcibly seize farmland, now a common cause of grievance.
"We will make sure we guarantee the long-term land rights of farmers. We will maintain the strictest controls to prevent their land being forcibly taken away from them," Wen said. ------------------ Rich-poor gap
Earlier on Tuesday, about 3,000 delegates to the National People's Congress approved a five-year plan that seeks to address the wealth chasm dividing cities and the countryside.
The plan was approved by party leaders last year. The rubber-stamp Parliament has never voted down party policy and there was never any suggestion it would do so when it convened at the cavernous Great Hall of the People, perched at the edge of Tiananmen Square and adorned with red flags.
Wen opened Parliament on March 5 pledging China would channel its surging economic growth to narrow the rich-poor gap.
That gap has been linked -- along with corruption, land grabs and other problems -- to a rise in social unrest in the countryside, home to more than 700 million people who earn just a third of the annual wages of their urban brethren.
Wen also offered to enter into dialogue with Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party on condition it drops its pro-independence platform, but the DPP rejected the overture.
He said China was willing to hold talks with any Taiwan individual or political party under the "one China" principle which dictates that both the island and the mainland, which split at the end of a civil war in 1949, are part of a single country.
The premier ruled out a further revaluation of the yuan despite growing U.S. pressure for China to let its currency rise faster to help cut its politically troublesome trade surplus with the United States.
Parliament also overwhelmingly approved the annual report of the premier and Finance Minister Jin Renqing's government budget.
Jin called for trimming the budget deficit and winding back a fiscal stimulus that began in 1998, as well as for a double-digit increase in the military budget.
Wen defended the military budget increase, which has stoked anxiety in Washington about China's intentions, saying it was for the improvement of the army and its self-defense capacity.