Top adviser stresses economy as Chinese legislature prepares to meet for annual session

Stress on economy as China holds annual meetings

BEIJING — China’s top parliamentary adviser says 2010 will be critical for maintaining growth, creating jobs, and diversifying away from exports, underscoring the economy’s central importance as the annual legislative session prepares to open.

Beijing declared that China had emerged from the global crisis after economic growth rebounded to 10.7 percent in the final quarter of 2009. But authorities say the global outlook is still uncertain, amid worries that a stimulus-driven torrent of lending is adding to inflation and fueling a dangerous bubble in stock and real estate prices.

“The year 2010 is a crucial year for China to respond to the impact of the global financial crisis and maintain steady and rapid economic development,” Jia Qinglin said in a speech at the opening Wednesday of the annual gathering of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

Jia, the Communist Party’s No. 4 ranking leader, said policies would focus on “accelerating the transformation of the pattern of economic development,” citing the need to boost the service sector and develop low-polluting industries.

The stress on economic measures is expected to be even more pronounced at the annual session of the legislature, the National People’s Congress, which opens on Friday with a major address by Premier Wen Jiabao.

This week’s consultative conference, of which Jia is chairman, advises the congress on legislation but has no decision making power.

The overlapping meetings mark the highlight of the Chinese political calendar, laying out priorities for the rest of the year.

Along with economic policy, this year’s session will give a full airing to hot-button issues such as soaring real estate prices in many Chinese cities.

The government, which releases a budget and work plan for the year, is expected to boost spending on education, pensions and medical care, continuing a push begun over the past decade to strengthen a tattered social safety net.

While most decisions are handled by a standing committee that meets year-round, the annual full session this year is expected to pass legislation on safeguarding state secrets and amend a law on how deputies are selected, correcting a disparity that gave urban Chinese greater representation than their more numerous rural neighbors.

The communist government hails the NPC, made up of nearly 3,000 hand-picked members, as a system of reaching consensus best suited to China and rejects calls for a Western-style multiparty democracy.

However, many experts question the effectiveness of the NPC and CPPCC in assuaging discontent and ensuring social stability, citing their primary roles as backing decisions made by the top leadership.

In his speech, Jia also commented on riots last July in the far-western Xinjiang region, where clashes between minority Turkic-speaking Uighurs and majority Han residents in the city of Urumqi left nearly 200 people dead and 1,600 wounded, in China’s worst ethnic unrest in decades.

“We strongly supported the party and the government in dealing with the destructive, disruptive, violent, and criminal incidents in Urumqi in accordance with the law,” he said.

In China’s other troubled minority area, Tibet, Jia said China planned to push “leapfrog development and lasting stability.” The comments follow a high-level Communist Party conference in January that emphasized raising rural livelihoods in Tibet, an apparent acknowledgment that decades of investment in industry and infrastructure have failed to endear Chinese rule to the region’s herders and farmers.

Along the sidelines, the congress will focus attention on a national leadership transition that begins with a key Communist Party congress in 2012.

Many of the aspirants for top jobs will seek to network among congress participants and maximize their national media exposure.

Particular attention is being paid this year to Bo Xilai, party boss of the western city of Chongqing, who is riding a wave of popularity for an anti-gang crusade in which dozens of law enforcement officials have been arrested for collusion.

Security was stepped-up in the capital Wednesday, with black-clad SWAT teams on motorcycles and in armored vans circling Tiananmen Square, adjacent to the Great Hall of the People where the meetings take place.

Dissidents and groups working on sensitive social issues came under increased pressure. AIDS activist Wan Yanhai, founder of the Beijing-based Aizhixing Institute, said police had ordered him to cancel a seminar Wednesday marking International Sex Worker Rights Day.

“The seminar is a perfectly normal activity; we’re not opposing anything,” Wan said in a telephone interview. “It’s a meeting of the people’s government, so they should let the people express themselves.”