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BEIJING - China will press ahead with political reform in the face of growing social pressures, but only with the Communist Party firmly in charge, President Hu Jintao said at the start of the Party's biggest meeting in five years.
The 17th Congress will enshrine Hu's slogans and name likely successors in a show of unity by the party that governs more than 1.3 billion and the world's fourth biggest economy.
"We must uphold the party's role as the core of leadership in directing the overall situation," Hu said in a speech to more than 2200 delegates.
"Citizens' participation in political affairs will expand in an orderly way," he said, adding: "Socialist core values will prevail among the people ... "
Hu has presided over five years of breakneck growth during which China has become a major economic and diplomatic power. But China is also facing serious challenges to its model of development, including a huge gap between rich and poor, widespread environmental degradation and official corruption, all of which are fuelling social unrest.
After dramatically ousting former Shanghai Party boss Chen Liangyu last year over corruption, Hu warned that graft was still a major threat and would not be tolerated.
Since he succeeded Jiang Zemin as party chief in 2002, Hu has promoted a "harmonious society" that grafts efforts to spread wealth more equally on to the nation's market-driven economy.
That slogan and Hu's "scientific outlook of development" that aims to balance growth with environmental sustainability are set to be written into party documents, a victory for Hu in a system where ideological formulas are a currency of political power.
Speaking for more than two hours in the Great Hall of the People Hu indicated he would continue to pursue a path of more balanced growth.
"We will implement the responsibility system for conserving energy and reducing emissions," he said.
Hu said China, under fire from abroad over its record trade surpluses, must wean the economy off exports and investment to rely more on consumer spending. China needed to clamber up the technology ladder. He also promised to develop a more technologically sophisticated defence force and offered an olive branch to Taiwan. "We are willing to make every effort with utmost sincerity to achieve peaceful reunification of the two sides, and will never allow anyone to separate Taiwan from the motherland in any name or by any means."
Responding to concerns abroad over China's diplomatic agenda, Hu said the country would stick to peaceful development. He repeated concerns about the growing gap between rich and poor, a flashpoint for social unrest and a problem serious enough that analysts said it may spur tentative political reforms.
David Zweig, of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said: "His comment on enhancing ways that citizens can be involved suggests that one of the ways in which you enhance stability is by getting citizens more involved in politics."
But participation is unlikely to come at the cost of the party's control.
Dissidents have been detained and thousands of petitioners rounded up to stop them lobbying officials directly with calls for justice.
Police were out in force in Beijing for the Congress. One protester was dragged away by security and bundled into a police van in front of a clock on Tiananmen Square counting down to the 2008 Olympics.
"Look at all those police," observed cab driver Wang Jiandong. "Not even a bird could fly over."
- Reuters
