China legislature to focus on improving social safety net, more equitable economic development

China vows to improve social safety net

BEIJING — China’s top lawmaker said Tuesday that legislative priorities this year would be to improve social security and promote more equitable economic development, but he rejected calls to open up the political system.

Uneven economic growth, skyrocketing home prices, limited and expensive medical care, and sparse pension plans have raised huge concerns in China about social stability and provoked widespread discontent.

“China is in an important period of strategic opportunities for its economic and social development as well as a period of serious social problems,” Wu Bangguo told the legislature, or National People’s Congress, whose annual session ends Sunday.

He said this presented “arduous and formidable” tasks in promoting reform, development and stability.

Delegates would put the final touches on a draft social security law and make adjustments to the legal system to “dispel the people’s worries and better maintain social harmony and stability,” Wu said in his address at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.

The law broadly aims to establish a safety net of pension, health care and unemployment benefits, provide free primary and secondary education, and assist the migration of rural residents to cities.

Wu gave no details of the law, but the changes are believed to include more support for lower-income Chinese, many who have been left behind by China’s rapid economic growth over the last three decades.

Wu is chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and the ruling Communist Party’s second-highest ranking official. His speech comes midway through the legislative session. Most of the business of the congress is handed by a standing committee that meets year-round.

The nearly 3,000 delegates meet once a year in full session to approve decisions already made at the top levels of the Communist Party. Wu, despite some calls for reforms to strengthen the congress’s powers, indicated there would be no changes toward a more open system.

The congress has “reached a thorough understanding of the essential differences between our country’s system of People’s Congresses and Western capitalist countries’ systems of political power,” he said.

While such statements are routine in speeches to the legislature, Wu’s language was far milder than last year, when the party was beating back a bold call for sweeping political reform known as “Charter ‘08″ that drew considerable attention among intellectuals and on the Internet.

More than one year later, the charter’s most illustrious signatory, Liu Xiaobo, is in prison serving an 11-year sentence for incitement to subvert state power. Others who signed have been threatened and intimidated into silence, along with activists for religious and ethnic minority rights.

The crackdown’s apparent success has left the leadership confident enough to tone down the tough rhetoric, which alienates many better-educated and cosmopolitan Chinese.

Wu said the congress would focus on fighting climate change and improving the functions of the government.

In particular, Wu said the congress will pay close attention to efforts to accelerate economic and social development in Tibet, the vast western region of Xinjiang and other ethnic minority areas.

Tibet was hit by violent anti-government riots two years ago, and ethnic riots in July left nearly 200 dead in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi.

China’s rulers are also pouring money into rural areas. The urban-rural wealth gap has widened in recent years and countryside residents earn incomes that are on average just one-third of urban ones. Schools, hospitals, recreational facilities and government services lag far behind those in the cities.