[PEN-L:9474] Chinese Communist Party to return to its roots

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Hong Kong Standard - July 21, 1999

Jiang says rural poverty is threat to security

             STORY: BEIJING: President Jiang Zemin has called on the
ruling Communist
             Party to return to its roots and ease rural poverty by 2000
as a matter of
             national security.

             ``Poverty relief and development have reached the most
difficult stage,'' the
             People's Daily yesterday quoted him saying.

             ``It is the solemn commitment of the party and the central
government to the
             entire people to basically solve the food and clothing
problem facing the rural
             poor by 2000,'' he said.

             Mr Jiang hailed 20 years of economic reforms which he said
had brought
             millions of mainlanders out of poverty.

             He said 42 million people lived below the poverty line in
1998, compared with
             80 million in 1993 and 250 million in 1978. But the
mainland's restive border
             regions, dominated by minority ethnic groups, had largely
been left behind in
             the scramble for economic growth, and Mr Jiang said ensuring
their
             satisfaction was key to national security.

             ``We have many poor people living in places of strategic
importance and
             border areas, mainly inhabited by minorities,'' he said.
``Failure to solve the
             food and clothing problem will jeopardise national unity,
frontier stability and
             even national security.''