CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTYS FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
President Zemin vows to trim Peoples Liberation Army by 500,000 by century-end
Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Friday opened a crucial congress of his ruling Communist Party by vowing a revolution in ownership of public firms that could lead to mass privatisation in the ailing state sector.
Diplomats said Jiangs first major policy speech since the death of Deng Xiaoping last February was a clarion call to push on with the late paramount leaders capitalist-style reforms. Dengs pragmatic principles should be enshrined in the partys constitution, Jiang told the opening session of the five-yearly congress.
The central committee proposes that the party, at its 15th Congress, establish Deng Xiaoping theory as its guiding ideology, Jiang said, effectively ensuring Dengs sweeping reforms a leading place in party dogma.
In a speech that ranged over the revolutionary past and future of Chinese communism, Jiang also warned foreign countries not to interfere in its campaign to reunify with rival Taiwan and warned against overseas military alliances.
He vowed that China would not seek to establish any military bloc but said Beijing would craft smaller but tougher defences by trimming 500,000 men from its three million-strong Peoples Liberation Army by the end of the century.
After calling on Dengs theories to legitimise his reforms, Jiang pledged a strategic shift in ownership patterns and told state firms they would have to stand on their own.
China needs to develop diverse forms of ownership with public ownership in the dominant position, Jiang told more than 2,000 party delegates in Beijings Great Hall of the People, a Stalinist monument redolent of an earlier age of communism.
We should make strategic adjustments of the position of the state-owned sector of the economy, said the state president and party chief. Enterprises will operate independently according to the law, responsible for their own profits and losses. Under such a policy seen by economists as allowing an effective sell-off of the bulk of the struggling public sector the state would retain equity according to the amount of capital it had put into enterprises, Jiang said.
The 71-year-old leader of the worlds biggest political party warned that the reform would carry a painful price in laid-off state employees. It will cause temporary difficulties to part of the workers, he said. Jiangs 2-1/2-hour speech also gave full weight to international issues of concern to the Chinese leadership. He warned foreign countries not to interfere in Beijings campaign to reunify with Taiwan, saying overseas forces were scheming to engineer a permanent split between the communist mainland and its Nationalist-ruled island rival.
We shall not allow any forces whatsoever to change Taiwans status as part of China in any way, he said. We shall work for peaceful reunification, but we shall not undertake to renounce the use of force.
In a veiled attack at the United States and other Western nations, Jiang accused foreigners of using human rights to meddle in Chinas affairs and warned against the expansion of overseas military alliances.
Beijing has long been critical of the U.S. military presence in East Asia and has watched with growing and vocal concern the expansion of Washingtons strategic alliance with Japan.
Expanding military blocs and strengthening military alliances will not be conducive to safeguarding peace and security, Jiang said, warning that Cold War thinking and hegemonism continued to threaten world peace. While hailing communism as the driving force for Chinese development, Jiang also took aim at a plague of graft sapping the ruling partys ideological credibility.
The fight against corruption is a grave political struggle vital to the very existence of the party and the state, he said.
