Date:12/03/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/03/12/stories/2003031202001500.htm

International

NPC takes up issues of governance

By P. S. Suryanarayana

BEIJING March 11. The first session of China's 10th National People's Congress (NPC), the new Parliament, is seized of critical issues of governance including the primacy of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the importance of the rule of law.

The first annual session is expected to conclude by March 18 after electing President and Prime Minister among a host of leaders at the highest echelons of government and the state hierarchy.

While the Prime Minister, Zhu Rongji, had set the tone for the session by commending "socialist democracy'' on the inaugural day, March 5, another senior leader, Li Peng, has now underlined that the people's congress must voluntarily adhere to the principle of the CPC's leadership in China's governance, according to native political observers and foreign diplomats.

Mr. Li, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the previous 9th NPC, is understood to have emphasised that the new Parliament should not only uphold the leadership and political supremacy of the Communist Party of China but also enlarge the scope of national governance under the rule of law. In what was seen by some external observers as the essence of plain-speak politics, Mr. Li has told a group of NPC deputies, during a panel discussion, that China is far from stabilising as a "socialist (system) under the rule of law''. While Mr. Li's intervention of this order was in not in any way an indictment on the Chinese model of governance since the inception of the People's Republic in 1949, his pep talk acquires importance in the context, which is increasingly characterised by Beijing's brave new vision of the country's future in the political and economic spheres.

Significantly, Mr. Li has not only drawn attention to the paramount role of the CPC but also underlined how the party had, at its last national congress held here several months ago, outlined the objective of building a ``socialist political civilisation in China''.

The session has approved a plan to down-size, or more precisely right-size and restructure, the State Council in a bid to place the country firmly on course for a take-off as a liberalised economy and a global competitor.

An authoritative Chinese source told The Hindu that pragmatism was the name of the new political exercise here.