LEAD: China's new premier says rural poverty top task

Asian Economic News, March 25, 2003

BEIJING, March 18 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING DETAIL, QUOTES)

China's Premier Wen Jiabao brought a new compassionate face to the top position Tuesday, declaring himself a ''very ordinary man'' and identifying the alleviation of rural poverty as the main priority of his five-year term.

''The first of the major problems we are faced with is the backward development of agriculture and the slow increase of farmers' incomes,'' he said after the conclusion of China's yearly National People's Congress (NPC).

Speaking to reporters for the first time following his selection as premier Sunday, Wen cut a very different figure to that of Zhu Rongji -- the witty and sharp-tongued outgoing premier who Beijing-based diplomats said made a number of enemies with Beijing's circle of top officials because of his tough, uncompromising style.

Wen said China's new government will work to alleviate uneven development between urban and rural areas and between the eastern and the poorer western areas of China brought about by rapid economic development.

Wen also identified China's struggling enterprises, non-performing bank loans and unemployment as major problems to be tackled.

''I am a very ordinary person. I come from a family of teachers in the countryside. My grandfather, father and mother were all teachers,'' said Wen, 60.

He added that his 25 years working in the field as a geologist has given him firsthand experience of seeing how hard life can be in China.

''I have been to 1,800 out of a total of 2,500 counties in China, which has enabled me to better understand the national conditions and people's lives. I deeply understand the people's expectations and I will be sure to live up to them,'' he said.

Like Hu Jintao, which the 10th NPC selected as China's new president Saturday, Wen has worked for the Chinese Communist Party in the impoverished western province Gansu.

Wen was at pains, however, to stress that his reputation as being a more mellow man than former Premier Zhu, who he said he greatly admired and learned a lot from, would not interfere with his determination to push through difficult policies.

''It is generally believed I am quite mild-mannered. But at the same time, I am someone who deeply believes in his convictions, holds his ground if it is consistent with principles, and is confident and courageous enough to take up responsibilities,'' he said.

When Zhu became premier five years ago, he pushed through an ambitious economic reform program that has marginalized a growing proportion of China's population, especially farmers and laid-off workers.

In Zhu's final work report presented to some 2,980 NPC delegates March 5, he highlighted the unequal distribution of wealth and the slow growth of farmers' incomes as China's major social problems.

While urban residents' incomes increased by 8.6% during the past five years, those of farmers rose by only 3.8%.

Wen said that 10 million people are entering the workforce every year.

The number of laid-off and unemployed workers is about 14 million, and the number of China's migrant workers looking for jobs is about 120 million, he added.

''The number of laid-off and unemployed workers keeps going up, causing tremendous pressure on the social security system,'' he said.

Wen did not offer a detailed plan on how to handle China's social problems, but he said discriminatory policies against China's growing private sector will be pared back to encourage the sector to grow so that it can absorb more labor.

''We will ensure a level playing field so the individually owned and privately owned enterprises will get the same treatment when it comes to market access, taxation, loan applications and import and export businesses,'' he said.

Wen said his government will work to combat the ''serious problem'' of corruption by imposing stiffer penalties against corrupt officials and opening the government to greater supervision by the wider public, including the media.

Wen's reputation for compassion for the common people has been embellished by recent reports of him in the state-controlled media sharing a Chinese Spring Festival meal with miners down a mine shaft in northeastern China.

China's central government is feeling the pressure from growing dissatisfaction among the country's vast populace over rising unemployment and social marginalization.

In an embarrassing sideshow to the NPC, on March 12 an unemployed man from northeastern Heilongjiang Province entered the Beijing bureau of British news agency Reuters carrying a bag, which he claimed contained a bomb.

Before the man was taken away after a lengthy standoff confirmed the bomb scare was a hoax, he reportedly asked a Reuters television crew to interview him about corruption in the Chinese government.

''Leaders should respect, protect and love the workers. I want the whole world to know how black China is, how corrupt it is,'' the man was quoted as saying.

China's authorities, highly sensitive to any form of labor protest, imposed a blanket media ban on mass protests in March last year when tens of thousands of workers seeking back-pay or welfare benefits demonstrated in the northeastern cities Liaoyang and Daqing, China's oil production center.