E-Kantipur

BEIJING, MAR 13 -

Mao Zedong's grandson couldn't have put it more simply. China's biggest challenge? "Economic development," he said, as the nation's most public political meetings end with sweeping goals to expand growth — and help more Chinese enjoy it.

Mao's grandson, Mao Xinyu, and thousands of other delegates have sat patiently through more than a week of what's essentially a display of political unity: the annual sessions of the national legislature and a government advisory body that end Sunday. But the issues behind the speeches — employment, social security, corruption — are grindingly real.

The world's third-largest economy may have escaped the worst of the global financial crisis by ordering $1.4 trillion in bank lending and government stimulus, but major problems remain for the country's 1.3 billion people.

Before its closing Sunday, the National People's Congress will approve a budget with a more than 10 percent boost in spending to fuel the economic recovery, with more money for low-cost housing, extending pension coverage and other social programs. Premier Wen Jiabao, the country's top economic official, will hold a rare news conference.

The priorities continue Wen and President Hu Jintao's yearslong efforts to spread the benefits of economic growth more broadly across a rapidly changing society. This year, inflation is a challenge. Property prices are soaring. The rich-poor gap is increasing and increasingly contentious. Millions of migrant workers and farmers go without basic government aid.

Any of those issues could lead to social unrest — one of the ruling Communist Party's biggest fears. This year's session had the usual heavy police presence in Beijing, with dozens of activists reportedly harassed or detained.

Other economic problems worry the international business community. Consumer demand in China remains anemic, and generous bank lending may be creating bubbles in stock and real estate prices.

China's own state-controlled media has shown signs of being more assertive on issues important to the public.

Just before this year's meetings started, more than a dozen newspapers published a rare joint editorial demanding changes to the outdated household registration system that essentially labels each person as urban or rural. It has kept millions of people from the countryside who work in cities from getting basic government aid.

The editorial's co-author, however, was quickly punished and apparently lost his job.

The media also leapt on an incident that happened on the sidelines of the meetings, when the governor of the central province of Hubei angrily called a Beijing reporter's question "senseless" and reportedly took away her tape recorder.

The story spread quickly online and people asked whether the governor, Li Hongzhong, should apologize.

The debate "has strong echoes of the inability of communist states in Eastern Europe to control the media as social and economic liberalization took hold," said Bruce Gilley, a China politics expert at Portland State University.

In one gesture aimed at narrowing the rural-urban gap at the root of several issues, Sunday's session is expected to pass an amendment to the election law to improve representation for rural areas. At the moment, one rural delegate to the National People's Congress represents four times as many people as an urban one.

Such a change is mostly symbolic. National and local legislatures generally adopt decisions made behind closed doors by Communist Party leaders.

Posted on: 2010-03-13 09:05

Post Your Comment

Please note that all the fields marked * are mandatory.
* Full Name
* Address
* Email Address
* Comment
* Captcha	Get another CAPTCHA code
Note:	Comments containing abusive words or slander shall not be published.