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Annual address to the parliament Chinese PM calls for high-tech army, tough on Taiwan

BEIJING: China's military should improve its combat effectiveness by harnessing new high technology and upgrading its arsenal, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji said while addressing annual session of parliament on Sunday.

"We should energetically support efforts to improve the quality of the People's Liberation Army, continuing to strengthen the army through science and technology and upgrading its weapons and equipment," he said in his annual report to the National People's Congress.

Zhu did not directly link his call for boosting the military to his government's recent policy white paper which threatened an invasion if Taiwan continued to rebuff moves toward reunification.

China has voiced strong opposition to a proposed US national missile defense plan and a joint US-Japan theater missile defense proposal in East Asia.

Beijing also considers Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province, as the most sensitive issue facing Sino-US relations and has been adamantly opposed to the sale of high tech US weaponry to the island.

"We should improve the army's defence capabilities and combat effectiveness, fully taking into consideration modern technology, especially high technology," Zhu said.

He also called for boosting "the reform, restructuring and development efforts of the national defence-related technology industry.

"Reform of the national defence mobilisation system should be continued and the militia and the reserves strengthened".

Zhu Rongji kicked off the session of parliament with a new warning on Taiwan independence and a nod towards rising public anger against corruption.

He offered good news on the economy, insisting his ambitious plan announced in 1998 to turn around loss-making state firms in three years was on track -- and that the textile sector was already profitable a year ahead of schedule.

Taiwan is shaping up as a major theme of the National People's Congress, which opened its 11-day session less than two weeks before the island holds presidential elections.

Zhu piled more pressure on voters by vowing China would not "sit idly by" if Taiwan moved towards independence.

Zhu stopped short of repeating the warning of military action, and repeated Beijing's long-standing position that it wants peaceful reunification. He said China would "vigorously promote" economic and trade links with Taiwan.

Zhu showed sympathy for the anger of ordinary Chinese against corruption.

"We still fall far short of what the central authorities require of us and what the people expect of us," Zhu admitted, promising "unremitting efforts" to fix the problem.

Endemic graft at all levels of government threatens the Communist Party's monopoly on power, and public support for Zhu's efforts to overhaul the economy.

Parliament itself has been badly tainted: its vice chairman is being investigated for taking bribes, and was told to stay away from the meeting.

Zhu boasted of "great victories" in the past year against Taiwan separatists he said were led by outgoing President Lee Teng-hui, and the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Lee infuriated Beijing by saying Taiwan would only negotiate with the mainland as a sovereign equal on a "special state-to-state basis".

Countless uniformed and plainclothes officers patrolled the area below the portrait of the late Chairman Mao Zedong across the square from the Great Hall of the People.

Some of the detainees had unfurled banners before they were surrounded by police and hustled quickly aboard small buses.

The session brings together more than 2,900 delegates from Tibet, to Hong Kong and Taiwan.-Reuters