From AP, via Taipei Times:
Land conflicts, unstable prices and backward conditions in China’s farm sector are threatening the country’s stability and its food supply, Premier Wen Jiabao (Ê∫´ÂÆ∂ÂØ∂) said in unusually blunt remarks published yesterday.
Sustainable development and national stability depend on resolving such problems, Wen said in the text of a speech carried in major state-run newspapers.
His comments underscore rising concern over lagging economic growth in the countryside, home to at least two of every three Chinese. Stagnating rural incomes have created an underclass of impoverished farmers lacking affordable access to basic public services such as health care and education.
