China’s Wen says leadership reform ‘urgent’

CHINA: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday that China could see a repeat of the Cultural Revolution without “urgent” political reform, during his final press conference as prime minister.

Wen, widely considered the most progressive of China's leaders, made the dramatic comments at a news conference marking the end of the annual session of parliament -- the last of his 10-year tenure, which is drawing to a close.

“We must press ahead with both economic structural reform and political structural reform, in particular reform in the leadership system of our party and country,” he told reporters, adding it was an “urgent task”.

“Without a successful political structural reform, it is impossible for us to fully institute economic structural reform and the gains we have made in this area may be lost,” he said.

“New problems that have cropped up in China's society will not be fundamentally resolved, and such historical tragedy as the Cultural Revolution may happen again.” The 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution was a decade of brutal chaos launched by revolutionary leader Mao Zedong to bring down what he perceived as “capitalist” forces after other leaders sought to move away from his radical utopian ideas. Untold numbers died in the turmoil as students turned on teachers, officials were purged and the country and its economy were brought to a virtual standstill. The subject is still sensitive today.

Wen has mentioned the need for political reform in one-party, authoritarian China before, although he has never fully elaborated on what this would entail, and his comments on Wednesday were the strongest yet on the subject.

In March last year -- at the same press conference -- he called for “gradual” political reform under the “leadership of the (Communist) party”, and he made similar comments in 2010. AFP