Hu Jintao`s Era on the Horizon

The 16th Chinese Communist Party(CCP) Congress raised its curtain yesterday with 2114 delegates in hand. the CCP Congress trumpets the opening of Hu Jintao`s era.

At the Congress, Hu will be elected as the CCP`s General Secretary and the Politburo and the Central Committee will greet new leadership. With the CCP Congress as the starting point, the "fourth generation" is expected to take the helm of China.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin said in a statement that China has already turned into the society led by the middle class, promising to bringing up the nation`s GDP by four fold from the 2000 level by 2020.

Jiang reiterated his commitment to opening the Communist Party`s door to entrepreneurs. He emphasized that the Communist Party should represent advanced productive power, advanced culture and workers and farmers for the prosperity of China.

In particular, he said that the Communist Party should admit other social classes that pledged to abide by the party platform and that legally-earned income, by labor or not, would be protected, indicating that he would legalize the income or profits made with capital.

Regarding political reforms, Jiang suggested the revision of the election system so that the public opinion could be reflected, the disclosure of the government` major decisions, and the reform of the legal system through ensure the independence of the prosecution and jurisdiction. But he did not mention the western style reform such as the multiparty system.

With regards to the Taiwan issue, Jiang made it clear that he opposed the independence of Taiwan. He said that every issue could be addressed through dialogue with the `one nation, two systems` principle as a precondition. But he urged to put political issues on the back burner for the time being. He added that he would expand cross-strait exchange in various areas including economy and culture. He called for Taiwan to take more active and pragmatic measures to increase exchanges of trade, sea transportation and mails between the China and Taiwan.

yshwang@donga.com