From AP, via Newsvine:
China must urgently tackle corruption and spread wealth more fairly among its 1.3 billion people, but political reform will be gradual and only under continued one-party communist rule, President Hu Jintao said.
In a major speech laying out his future agenda, Hu told Communist Party leaders they must meet a 2020 target for achieving a “basically well-off society,” a key motif of his nearly five years as head of state and party chairman.
“This is where the interests of all the nation’s ethnic groups lie and this is what we must strive for unremittingly,” Hu said in his address Monday at the Central Party School. The event was closed to foreign journalists but a summary was carried Tuesday on the front page of the party mouthpiece People’s Daily and other official newspapers.
In a conspicuous show of unity, the speech was attended by the full membership of the party’s Central Committee, leaders of the military and security services, representatives of all cities, provinces and regions and the heads of top government organizations. [Full Text]
