From AP via ABC news:
China’s Communist Party called on its members Sunday to improve their ability to run an increasingly complex nation, complaining in an unusually self-critical statement that some of its own leaders lack integrity and warning that the “life and death of the party” could hang in the balance.
The appeal came in a report issued after a leadership meeting that concluded Sept. 19 and sealed President Hu Jintao’s leadership by appointing him head of China’s military, succeeding former leader Jiang Zemin.
The report by the party Central Committee called on its members to “develop a stronger sense of crisis” about reform, warning that communist rule “will not remain forever if the party does nothing to safeguard it,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
In AFP’s report, it quoted dissident writer Liu Xiaobo’s comment on the party’s document.
“The document did not address the longstanding issues of how to separate the party from the government, how to establish a truly independent judiciary or how to build a legal system capable of protecting the rights and interests of ordinary citizens,” Liu said. It also made no detailed proposals for better addressing the widening gap between rich and poor or tackling growing unemployment.
“Although the document talked a lot about corruption, there were really no new methods on how the party plans to root out corruption, nor were any systematic changes to the political system outlined,” Liu said.
“Overall, to depend on this document to address China’s social contradictions is largely unrealistic.”
