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China congress backs Zhu

BEIJING: Chinese lawmakers gave Premier Zhu Rongji a strong endorsement on Wednesday, but were less keen on his government's deficit-heavy budget and clearly unimpressed by Beijing's pledge to stamp out rampant corruption.

The National People's Congress (NPC), China's largely powerless parliament, wound down its 11-day annual session with 97 percent of the nearly 2,800 delegates voting for Zhu's work report and 86 percent backing the budget.

On the issue of corruption, however, lawmakers used the ceremonial vote to tell Beijing it had not done enough to halt the graft that threatens the Communist Party's grip on power.

The work report issued by top prosecutor Han Zhubin, in which he vowed that nobody was above the law in the battle for clean government, failed to impress delegates, 29 percent of whom voted against it or abstained.

The report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate has become a focus of dissatisfaction with government policy in recent years, with abstentions or protest votes against it providing about the only drama in the largely rubber-stamp body.

State media had predicted a surge in approval of the government's anti-graft drive this year. Last year 22 percent of delegates abstained or rejected it -- half of the whopping 45 percent who signalled disapproval in 1998.

On the eve of the vote, state media quoted top Communist Party graft-buster Wei Jianxing as saying the government's anti-graft policies were "correct and effective" while acknowledging China still faced a "grim situation".-Reuters