China's Hu says Party survival rests on growth, stability (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – China's ruling Communist Party must ensure economic growth and its iron grip on stability do not slacken, President Hu Jintao said on Friday, using the party's 90th anniversary as a show of unity ahead of a tricky leadership succession.

"Development is of paramount importance and stability is the paramount task," Hu told hand-picked party members inside Beijing's cavernous Great Hall of the People, in a speech carried live on state television.

"Without stability, nothing can be accomplished, and the achievements that we have made will be lost. All of the party's comrade's must take this message to heart, and they must also lead all the people to take this to heart," he said.

"Only by promoting both healthy and fast economic development can we secure a strong material foundation for the great revival of the Chinese nation."

The party has shown no sign of diluting its own vast powers before a big political shake-up late next year, when Hu will hand over power, most likely to Vice President Xi Jinping.

Xi gave a short introductory address before Hu took the stage, to congratulate model party members.

Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin, did not attend the ceremony, possibly a sign of the 84-year-old's declining health. Hu, aged 68, is also beginning to show his age, despite the jet-black head of hair that all central leaders sport, thanks to dye.

China launched a wave of propaganda in the weeks leading up to the anniversary, producing slick films and decking out Beijing with banners lauding party rule and the progress the country has made since the 1949 revolution.

While Premier Wen Jiabao, who is also preparing to retire, has made a habit recently of more directly calling for political reform than his more cautious comrades, the party appears in no mood to listen.

"Looking back at the progress that China has made over 90 years, we can reach one fundamental conclusion -- that the key to properly managing China's affairs lies in the party," said Hu, who oversees the world's largest political party, with 80 million members.

"We have every reason to be proud of what the party and the people have achieved, but we have no reason to be complacent. We must not and will never rest on our laurels."

Yet despite some oblique sniping between provincial leaders vying for a place in the next central leadership, Hu has presided over a strikingly disciplined group of top leaders, said Kerry Brown, head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House, a London foreign policy institute.

"Some pundits try to create a drama, when in fact the most interesting thing is the absolute, icy stillness at the center," said Brown, who is writing a biography of Hu.

"With the things that are going on, and all of the problems, there must be pretty passionate debates, but we don't get a sign of it," he said in a telephone interview.

"CONFLICTS AND PROBLEMS"

After some muted moves to give citizens stronger legal protections early in his time as president, Hu has made enforcing firmer control over China's increasingly diverse and fractious society a feature of his time in power.

The last few months have been marked by arrests and detentions of dissidents, human rights lawyers and long-time protesters, following calls online for Arab-style "Jasmine protests" in China.

Hu warned about the strains buffeting party rule as the consequences of economic transformation courses through Chinese society.

"Currently China is undergoing an unprecedentedly broad social transformation. At the same time as bringing tremendous vitality to our country's development and progress, this will also inevitably bring all kinds of conflicts and problems."

Despite China's robust economic growth, its communist leaders worry that their rule could be eroded and eventually challenged by social unrest and elite schisms and send it the way of the Soviet Union which collapsed two decade ago.

The country saw almost 90,000 "mass incidents" -- riots, protests, mass petitions and other acts of unrest -- in 2009, according to a 2011 study by two scholars from Nankai University in north China. Some estimates go even higher.

By contrast, in 2007, China had more than 80,000 mass incidents, up from over 60,000 in 2006, according to an earlier report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"The whole party must see with crystal clarity that the conditions facing the world, the country and party are undergoing profound changes, and that under these new circumstances we face unprecedented new circumstances and challenges," Hu said.

(Additional reporting by K.J. Kwon; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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China's Hu warns of risks as Communist Party turns 90 (AFP)

BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese President Hu Jintao warned the ruling Communist Party faced severe "growing pains" as it turned 90 on Friday and said corruption, and alienation from China's masses, could erode public support.

But in a speech on the anniversary of its 1921 founding, Hu gave no sign that the party intended to loosen the iron grip on political power it has maintained for more than six tumultuous decades.

Hu capped months of orchestrated anniversary build-up by praising the party for leading China out of civil war and chaos, but made clear that pitfalls lie ahead as the party strikes an ungainly balance between economic openness and political rigidity.

"The entire party must clearly see that, with the deep changes in the world, national, and party situations, we face many new problems and challenges to improve the party's leadership and rule and to strengthen the ability to resist corruption and risks," Hu said.

Hu, who has headed the party for nearly a decade, singled out rampant corruption as a clear danger to Communist ruling legitimacy.

Corruption by Communist officials is routinely named in opinion polls as a top source of public discontent, and Hu said the anti-graft fight was the key to "winning or losing public support and the life or death of the party".

"Corruption will cost the party the support and trust of the people," the Chinese president warned.

Hu delivered the speech in a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People -- the Stalinist-style monolith at the heart of Beijing -- that was attended by thousands of party leaders and members and broadcast live on state television.

The party has sought to fan enthusiasm in the anniversary run-up through an official outpouring of nostalgia for China's Communist past.

The propaganda blitz has included a stream of laudatory media articles, the singing of "red" songs from Communist China's early years, museum exhibitions and the release of a film glorifying the party's birth.

China also launched a high-speed rail line linking Beijing and Shanghai, and opened the world's longest cross-sea bridge just ahead of the party fete.

But analysts say such campaigns conceal the deep insecurities of a party still named for an ideology it has junked and struggling to address a range of complex problems without the flexibility that democracy affords.

These include an accelerating wealth gap, high inflation, horrific environmental degradation, demands for autonomy from millions-strong ethnic minorities, and regular reports of corrupt and abusive officials that inflame the public.

These and other issues spark tens of thousands of public protests and other disturbances each year, and China has ramped up its ability to put down such outbursts.

"China's Communist Party at 90 is a bit like many 90-year-olds: increasingly infirm, fearful, experimenting with ways to prolong life, but overwhelmed by the complexities of managing it," China scholar David Shambaugh wrote in a commentary piece.

Hu conceded that "the whole party is confronted with growing pains," warning that many party officials were "incompetent" and "divorced from the people".

"It is more urgent than ever for the party to impose discipline on its members," he said.

The practice of securing lucrative party and government positions through connections and backroom deals is considered to be widespread.

Hu vowed a more merit-based personnel system and a drive to recruit talented young members into the 80-million-strong party, about 75 percent of whose card-holders are more than 35 years old.

"(Young members) represent the future and hope of the party," Hu said.

The CCP was established in July 1921 in Shanghai as the brainchild of a dozen intellectuals, and took power in China in 1949 after defeating the rival Nationalists in a long and bloody civil war.

Revolutionary leader Mao Zedong then plunged the country into nearly 30 years of chaos through misguided policies that triggered political purges, famine, and social upheaval, leaving tens of millions died.

Hu made only passing reference to the period.

After Mao's death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping took over and launched a period of reforms that transformed China from an underachieving economic backwater into the world's second-largest economy.

But a small party elite maintains a tight rein on politics, the media and the world's largest military.

Hu paid lip service to democracy and public participation in policy-making, but made clear this would be done under the "leadership of the party" and stressed "stability", signifying no change in the current set-up.

Analysts say China's lack of political reform has fuelled many of the problems now faced by the party and makes it difficult to root them out.

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China's Communist Party members grow to 80 mln (AFP)

BEIJING (AFP) – China's ruling Communist Party topped 80 million members last year, a yearly increase of nearly three percent, a top official said Friday as the party gears up for its 90th anniversary next week.

More than half of the party's 80.27 million members were 46 years or older and more than a quarter were over the age of 60, said Wang Qinfeng, deputy chief of the party's Organisation Department, which handles personnel matters.

But the party was seeing continued applications by and recruitment of young people, college students, and women, Wang told reporters at a press briefing.

More than three million people applied or were targeted for recruitment into the world's largest political party in 2010, he said.

Of these, 81.8 percent were under the age of 35 and 38.5 percent were women, Wang said.

The percentage of full party members in 2010 who were under 35 was 24.3 percent, while 22.5 percent were women.

"The ranks of party members and grassroots party organisations have continuously developed" since the 1949 founding of communist China, he said.

The briefing was one of a series recently to extol the ruling party's history and accomplishments ahead of the July 1 anniversary of its founding.

China has pushed in recent years to expand the party's membership beyond the traditional make-up of government functionaries, retirees, blue-collar workers and farmers.

In particular, talented youths have been targeted, many of whom view membership as a prerequisite for a coveted civil service job.

Members of the business community, who have only been allowed into the party over the past decade, are seen as eyeing a party card as a good business move due to the connections it can spark.

Aspirants from "private sector organisations" made up 4.3 percent of all applicants and recruits last year, Wang said.

Another 40 percent in 2010 were college students.

The actual net increase in the party's total membership in 2010 was 2.23 million.

There were 4.5 million Communist Party members at the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

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