China's Premier Appeals to Taiwan
The Associated Press
Mar 5 2000 4:31AM ET
BEIJING (AP) - Shadowed by corruption scandals that have shaken China's political elite, Premier Zhu Rongji promised Sunday a tougher government campaign to punish corrupt officials no matter how powerful and to soothe public anger.
Opening the national legislature's annual session, Zhu also warned that China will not ``sit idly by' if Taiwan heads toward outright independence. But he tempered recent threats to attack Taiwan, offering negotiations for peaceful unification: ``We place our hopes on the Taiwan authorities and even more on the Taiwan people.'
He earned his biggest applause declaring China's resolve to reunify Taiwan at an early date and ``realize the great cause of reunification of the motherland.'
In a 90-minute overview of government policies, Zhu presented few new initiatives, underscoring the collective communist leadership's caution as China's economy bumpily grapples with rapid globalization and rising unemployment.
While he addressed the 5,000 delegates and government advisers inside the Great Hall of the People, police cordoned off adjacent Tiananmen Square. Security, always high for the event, was especially tight this year to prevent members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement from protesting a seven-month ban on the group.
Police detained at least 39 Falun Gong members or suspected followers along the square's fringe. Some tried to unfurl banners proclaiming ``The Great Law of Falun' underneath the giant portrait of Mao Tse-tung at the square's north end before police quickly led them away.
With President Jiang Zemin and the rest of the Politburo on the dais behind him, Zhu pledged more prosecutions of ``evil cults.' He cited the crackdown on Falun Gong as among last year's ``great victories,' along with protests against the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia and opposing provocative moves by Taiwan.
But Zhu repeatedly dwelled on the corruption and abuses of officials that have eroded public confidence in Communist Party rule. From levying taxes to running state enterprises, he cited the need for probity.
Delegates applauded as he demanded that leading officials ``stay clean' and make sure their staffs and relatives are too.
Cases of corruption ``must be thoroughly investigated, without favoritism or leniency, and corrupt elements must be severely punished,' he said.
The party-dominated National People's Congress is largely powerless but its 2,984 delegates include senior provincial politicians whose support the leadership needs. |
