CHINA: President promises to bridge the gap between rich and poor
Updated
China's President Hu Jintao vowed to pursue political reform in a major address delivered this week. The speech promoted a gradualist vision of political and economic change, in which he embraced greater political participation by ordinary people but ruled out any steps toward Western-style democracy. Analysts say the speech is a precursor to the 17th Party Congress this November where he will unveil his agenda for the next five years.
Presenter: Bill Bainbridge
Speakers: David Goodman, Professor of International Studies at the University of Technology in Sydney
BAINBRIDGE: For more than two decades China has pursued economic growth with single minded determination. That has made a huge number of people rich but has left many more behind.
David Goodman, Professor of International Studies at the University of Technology in Sydney, says that's a fact that is worrying Hu Jintao.
GOODMAN: After 30 years of economic growth China is now one of the most unequally distributed in wealth terms countries in the world, alongside other countries which are not just socially but often political unstable - Zambia, Uganda, Mexico. So you can understand can't you that a communist party state is concerned about these consequences, both for ideological reasons and for social reasons the leadership of the party thinks they have to intervene to redistribute wealth more equally.
BAINBRIDGE: Professor Goodman says the senior leadership of the Party is concerned that inequality and corruption will lead to the kind of social instability that could ultimately threaten their grip on power.
GOODMAN: The connection between political instability and social instability is about land to a large measure and the reaction to it. There is a great feeling, not just amongst the dispossessed who've lost their land but also amongst intellectuals, and even a large number of people in the party state that those who are powerful, both economically and politically are using their positions to usurp the land from people who work it. And that is a major cause for concern. So it's a call for party members and government officials to clean up their act and not be corrupt.
BAINBRIDGE: He says the speech, made to the 198-member Central Committee including party, government and military elite was a high profile opportunity for President Hu to present his view that China needs to pursue a more moderate rate of growth, one that doesn't ruin the country's environment or destabilise society.
The speech emphasised his political doctrines of "harmonious society" and "scientific development". Catchphrases that translate as cutting inequality and pursuing sustainable, energy-efficient economic development instead of breakneck growth at the expense of the environment.
GOODMAN: The crucial distinction of course is that economic growth is GDP per capita growth or GDP growth per annum as a figure which we have to, the government says has to happen all the time, as opposed to development, which means perhaps sacrificing one or two percentages of growth to ensure social balance, social justice, redistribution of wealth.
BAINBRIDGE: But that view is not shared by everyone in China's ruling Communist Party. President Hu is widely expected to use the 17th Party Congress this November to further consolidate power through a leadership reshuffle as well as to unveil the country's agenda for the next five years.
Professor Goodman says balancing the competing ideologies within the Party will be a difficult task.
GOODMAN: But much more than just reshuffling the leadership of the party, there are tendencies within the Chinese Communist Party, there are all kinds of different views and there are people who are more in favour of the growth model and some who are more in favour of development. And they're quite solid blocks of people with different agendas and different ideas, some of which are ultraistic and some which are not. So it's a very complex process.
