CHINA: The red flag-bedecked Great Hall of the People rang with promises of continuity and stability, as well as pointed threats to Taiwan not to follow a pro-independence route, as China's annual parliament, the National People's Congress, opened in the capital yesterday.
Premier Wen Jiabao kicked off the congress with a pledge to use China's strong economic performance of recent years to give rural residents a share of the growth which city-dwellers have long enjoyed.
"China must pay more attention to social equity and social stability so that all the people can enjoy the fruits of reform and development," he said in a 35-page speech to 3,000 delegates in the huge hall.
As expected, a big part of the speech centred on the government's plan to build a "new socialist countryside" for China's 800 million rural residents.
China could only find a lasting cure for its economic and social imbalances by raising the incomes, efficiency and confidence of farmers, Mr Wen said, and he warned of problems ahead.
"Some deeply seated conflicts that have accumulated over a long time have yet to be fundamentally resolved, and new problems have arisen that cannot be ignored," he said.
There was intermittent applause during the speech, which turned into thunderous clapping when he reiterated China's commitment to reunification with Taiwan, the self-ruled island which Beijing sees as a renegade province.
In an apparent warning to Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian, who last week angered Beijing by scrapping a reunification council, Mr Wen stressed China's desire to bring Taiwan back into the fold peacefully.
"It is the people's will for cross-Strait relations to develop in a direction of peace, stability and mutual benefit. Anyone who vainly seeks to destroy this great trend will certainly fail," he said.
Guo Boxiong, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, said the army favoured peaceful reunification but warned it would never allow "secessionist forces to make Taiwan secede from China under any name and by any means".
The congress underlined Beijing's unification goals by announcing a 14.7 per cent rise in defence spending for this year.
Aside from Taiwan, which the congress does not count as foreign policy anyway, the congress did not deal with specific external policy issues.
However, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing used the opportunity to urge Iran to resume talks with the EU and Russia ahead of a meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
China is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council.
"The important thing is to peacefully and properly resolve the problem through diplomatic means," he said.
Other issues raised at the congress included the need to continue the fight against corruption - last year about 115,000 Communist Party members were punished for corruption and other offences and Mr Wen said the government had a problem with growing bureaucracy and inefficiency.
A Chinese population expert told parliament the government should threaten to limit rich people's access to credit to keep them from spending their way past China's one-child policy.
Many people are now rich enough to pay the fines of about €15,000 for having an extra child.