Anticipating a tough, tense year ahead for China, the Prime Minister, Mr Zhu Rongji, yesterday appealed for a softer, gentler handling of the Chinese people by government officials. "We cannot employ dictatorial methods to treat the masses," he said.
In his first annual report to the People's National Congress, carried live on nationwide television, the blunt-speaking architect of the Chinese economy warned several times about the need to maintain social stability. Officials "should nip problems in the bud and they definitely cannot do things in an oversimplified and brutal way," he said. At the same time, authorities should "be on close guard and deal a blow to sabotage activities by hostile forces at home and abroad."
An annual ritual performed in Beijing's Great Hall of the People before almost 3,000 handpicked delegates, the Prime Minister's state-of-the-nation address this year was notable for its frank admission of difficulties and failures. Growth targets had not been met, the Asian crisis had a deeper impact on China than expected and severe flooding had caused the loss of 20,200 billion yuan (£17 billion).
Mr Zhu, China's foremost reformer, showed however he was not deterred from further change and opening up. Diplomats and journalists in the high balconies scanned the ranks of the Chinese leadership, including President Jiang Zemin, as they sipped tea served by white-gloved attendants, for signs of reported opposition to Mr Zhu's rapid reforms, but their impassive faces gave nothing away.
After a period of mounting social tension, with isolated demonstrations and eight bombings since January which killed 33 people, authorities outside were taking no chances of allowing an incident to upset the pomp and ceremony of the opening of the 10-day parliamentary session. Police lined approach roads, sightseers were kept far away, and a bomb-disposal unit stood by as the delegates, some in the colourful headgear and flowing silks of China's 56 ethnic minorities, made their way into the Great Hall. Several times in his 90-minute speech Mr Zhu returned to the theme of stability. Referring to the growing gap between rich and poor, he warned : "Legal, economic and administrative methods should be integrated with thorough and painstaking ideological and political work to properly address contradictions among the people and resolve them properly, eliminating such problems before they grow. Under no circumstances should we intensify them by handling them in an oversimplified or crude way. Still less should we use dictatorial means against the people."
He recommended that the rule of law should be strengthened as a defence against corrupt and heavy-handed officials, an admission of the crushing ad-hoc taxes imposed on peasants, one of the major causes of social discontent. Mr Zhu told cadres to lighten the burden on farmers to maintain rural stability.
"The pressing task at hand is to stop the practices of the arbitrary levying of charges, arbitrary fundraising, arbitrary imposing of quotas and arbitrary levying of fines," he said. The basic needs of laid-off workers in the cities must also be guaranteed an "an important measure for maintaining social stability".
The concerns of the Chinese leadership about stability are heightened by two major anniversaries which occur this year, the 50th anniversary in October of the founding of communist China and the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy students on June 4th. No mention was made in the official media of an appeal from the Tiananmen victims' relatives for parliament to order a public apology for the bloodshed. Pages carrying a report of the appeal were even removed from copies of the Herald Tribune on sale in city hotels on Thursday. In their petition to the Congress, headed by prominent academic Mr Ding Zilin, who lost a son, relatives also urged legislators to pass a law which would compensate their families.
Mr Zhu, regarded by western observers as more sympathetic to political reform than his predecessor, Mr Li Peng, now Congress chairman, gave little indication of early political reforms, merely saying they must "conscientiously strengthen democracy" and widen village democracy. His economic reforms are however apparently still on track, despite setbacks and rumours that he is being restrained by conservatives.
This year would be crucial for reforming state enterprises, he said, and the leaders of enterprises making a loss because of poor management "will be shown a yellow card in one year and dismissed from their posts in two years". Admitting that growth had narrowly failed to hit the 8 per cent target last year, he disclosed that only through an infrastructure spending spree funded by a 100 billion yuan ($12 billion) bond issue and 100 billion yuan in state bank loans did China actually achieve growth of 7.8 per cent.