•Hu Says China Faces `Arduous Task' in Maintaining Growth

China Faces ‘Arduous Task’ for Stable Growth, Society (Update2)
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By Bloomberg News

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=atpSKc5BP.2k

Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- China, the world’s third-largest economy, faces an “arduous task” in maintaining steady growth and a stable society, President Hu Jintao said, as the ruling communist party prepared to mark 60 years in power.

“Ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood as well as the mission of maintaining a stable society are arduous tasks as we face the impact of the global economic crisis,” Hu said, who was speaking at an event to mark the founding of the Chinese People’s Political Conference in Beijing today. Hu also spoke about the importance of national unity.

China will mark the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 on Oct. 1 as the government helps fuel a recovery from the deepest global recession since World War II with a $586 billion stimulus plan. Beijing is also battling ethnic tensions in its Xinjiang region, where riots in July killed almost 200 people.

“The international financial crisis has had a great impact, and national competitiveness has become more intense and there are more unstable and uncertain factors,” Hu said.

China’s gross domestic product grew 7.9 percent in the second quarter, up from 6.1 percent in the three months through March. GDP growth slowed to 9 percent for 2008 from 13 percent in 2007. The nation’s 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus plan, announced in November last year, runs through 2010.

China’s target of 8 percent growth in gross domestic product this year, while “difficult,” is attainable, China News reported yesterday citing Yao Jingyuan, chief economist at the National Bureau of Statistics.

‘Critical Phase’

The country is in the “critical phase” of ensuring economic growth, China National Radio reported Sept. 18, citing the Fourth Plenary Session of the 17th Communist Party of China Central Committee. Ensuring stable growth is government’s top priority as the global economic recovery is expected to be slow, the radio reported.

Curtailing ethnic unrest and a rise in protests nationwide has also become a priority for the Chinese government as it prepares to elevate a new generation of leaders who will begin to take office in 2012.

Syringe stabbings in China’s Muslim Xinjiang region have reignited the nation’s deadliest ethnic violence in decades. The attacks, which started on Aug. 17, followed July riots that left 197 people dead as tensions between Uighurs and Han Chinese turned violent.

‘Active Role’

The Chinese Communist Party “needs to play an active role to facilitate harmony in political, ethnic, religious and class relations among our compatriots at home and abroad,” Hu said.

The party must crack down on “separatist forces” that are plotting to create schisms between the nation’s 56 major ethnic groups, state broadcaster China Central Television reported on Sept. 18.

In the first half of the year, the number of demonstrations, riots, and strikes nationwide rose for the first time since 2005, Outlook, a magazine affiliated with the official Xinhua News Agency, reported in early September, without giving specific figures. The “rise in incidents involving more than 500 people is worthy of heightened vigilance,” the article said.

Yidi Zhao. Editors: Richard Dobson, Dick Schumacher.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Yidi Zhao in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7575 or yzhao7@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 20, 2009 06:39 EDT

 

China is throwing the U.S a line.

They need help and they need it fast.