China ‘needs leaders who are popular and in their prime’

Press, 1 September 1980, Page 7

China ‘needs leaders who are popular and in their prime’

NZPA-Reuter * Peking China opened a Parliamentary session yesterday vith a call by the chairman of the National People’s Congress for' the appointment of new Government leaders who have distinguished themselves in their <wark, enjoy popular support and are in the prime of life.

The Prime Minister (Mr Hua Guofeng), who is only 59, is expected to announce his resignation along with five senior and ageing Deputy Prime : Ministers in' a major speech on September

Mr Hua and three of the five Deputy Prime Ministers, Messrs Deng’ Xiaoping, Li Xiannian and Chen Yun, will keep their powerful posts as chairman and vice-chairmen respectively of the Communist Party. The Congress chairman (Mr Ye Jianying) aged 82, is expected to keep his post as de facto Head of State, but he told more than 3200 deputies yesterday-that effective measures had to be taken to change the situation where leading officials held too many posts.

This meant that power became too concentrated. "We must select and appoint to leading posts those cadres who have distinguished themselves in practical work, who enjoy popular support and who are in the prime of life,” he said.

The opening session of the 12-day Congress also heard important reports on the economy and the budget from the Deputy Prime Minister Yao Yilin, who heads the State Planning Commission, and the Finance Minister (Mr Wang Bingqian). Mr Wang, a former viceminister who was appointed to head the Ministry earlier last week, revealed that the Chinese budget slipped into deficit last year, with decreasing deficits also predicted for this year and 1981.

Last year’s deficit was $11.7 billion on revenues of $75.5 billion and spending of $B7 billion. This compared with a surplus of $698 million in 1978. Mr Wang estimated this year’s deficit sit $5.4 billion and the 1981 deficit at $3.4 billion. National defence spending

last year, when China fought a month-long border war with Vietnam, overran the budget by $1.3 billion for a total of $l5 billion. Meanwhile, four Oil Ministry officials accused of dereliction of duty in an offshore oil rig disaster in which 72 people died last November will go on trial tomorrow, the Xinhua News Agency reported at the week-end. It said four defence lawyers had been appointed for the public trial, which would be heard by. three judges and four jurors in the east coast city of Tianjin. The four defendents are Ma Jixiang, director of the Oceanic Petroleum; Exploration Bureau, the bureau’s deputy director, Wang Zhaozhu, Zhang Dejing, deputy general dispatcher of the bureau, and Lin Yongzhi, captain of the towing, vessel involved in the accident in which the rig capsized in Bohai Bay. The Oil Minister, Song Zhenming, was fired from his post earlier last week as a result of the scandal surrounding'attempts to cover up the facts in the disaster.