PREMIER Wen Jiabao at a press conference in the Great Hall of the People in downtown Beijing on Friday morning promised to make China’s political system more accountable to the people.

The press conference, shortly after the conclusion of the annual session of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, was attended by more than 700 Chinese and foreign journalists.

Political reform

China will advance the reform of its political system to fight corruption more effectively, Wen said.

“We will advance the reform in political system, and we need to reduce the over-concentration of power and enhance the oversight over the government by the people,” the premier said.

“We need to make sure all examinations and approvals (by the government), particularly those involving the interests of the people, be done in an open, just and transparent manner,” the premier added.

Wen also vowed to bring law-breaking corrupt officials to justice, “no matter in what areas the corruption cases are taking place, who are involved and how high-ranking they are.”

Socialist democracy

Wen said that the essence of China’s socialist democracy is to let the people be masters of the country and enable them to oversee and criticize the government.

The premier said China will take into account its own conditions and build democracy in its own way.

Living conditions

China is going to legislate on a minimum subsistence allowance to improve the living conditions of the needy, the premier said.

He said that China is considering the establishment of a plan on urban and rural medicare reform.

China has already legislated on the elimination of agricultural tax and agricultural specialty property tax as well as the free nine-year compulsory education system.

“Once system guarantee is in place, things will not change easily. Neither will they change with government and leadership,” he said.

Wen said that the ultimate goal of China’s reform and construction is to satisfy the increasing material and cultural demands of the people. To reach the goal, China must address the issue of the people’s well-being, which includes clothing, food, housing and transport.

“The most imminent one is to secure the equal opportunity of the general public to education,” he said.

Wen said that the government would look after the disadvantaged groups, especially farmers, and solve the problems concerning people’s livelihood.

“The speed of a fleet is not determined by the ship which travels the fastest, but the one that travels the slowest. If we improve the living conditions of those in difficulty, we improve the well-being of the whole society,” he said.

To ensure all the people can live a happy life, “the key is to secure their democratic rights and to promote equality and justice,” the premier said.

Military spending

Wen said that China is pursuing a defensive national defense policy and its military expenditure is at a very low level compared to the rest of the world.

“China is at a very low level both in aggregated terms or relative terms of the quantity of armed forces and military spending, compared with the developed countries and even some developing countries,” the premier said.

“We have a defense policy that is defensive in nature. The limited armed forces that China has are completely serving the purpose of safeguarding the country’s security, independence and sovereignty. On this matter, we are completely transparent.”

Taiwan issue

Premier Wen said that the mainland is closely watching the secessionist activities and plots by “Taiwan independence”

forces on the island, and will never allow any change of the historical fact that Taiwan has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times.

The year of 2007 is a crucial year for mainland-Taiwan relations and the key issue is to keep peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, Wen said.

The mainland will implement strictly the policies and measures for developing cross-Strait relations, said Wen, noting that peace and development will remain a main goal.

Mainland travelers have been hoping to visit Taiwan for quite a long period of time, and “we really look forward to the day that this will come true,” Wen said.

Japan visit

Premier Wen said that his scheduled visit to Japan in April will be an “ice-melting journey” for the relations between China and Japan, after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “ice-breaking journey” to China last October.

Abe’s visit was the first by a Japanese prime minister in five years. High-level visits between the two countries stopped because of former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s continued visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Japanese class-A war criminals in the World War II were enshrined.

Wen told the press conference that he is expected to reach consensus with Abe on the contents of strategic China-Japanese relations for mutual benefits and set up a mechanism to boost bilateral economic cooperation.

(Xinhua)