Historically speaking, your Rong family has performed meritorious service in helping to develop China's industry, thus making contributions to the nation. The growth of national industry helps to advance the progress of history, while the negative elements of capitalism are another aspect of the story. The reunion of your family members at this time is a happy event, an expression of unity and a rehearsal for our great national reunion. We should strive for the great unity of the entire Chinese nation.

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In general, the present economic situation is good. But how about the future? What obstacles are we going to run into? As I see it, there are two or three problems that might hold up the growth of our economy, if we fail to solve them.

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It is almost 37 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. During that time China has followed a tortuous road with alternating periods of smooth development and setbacks. After the "cultural revolution" we made a sober appraisal of the situation and thought over the course we were going to follow from then on. The turning point was marked by the Third Plenary Session of our Party's Eleventh Central Committee, which defined a series of new principles and policies.

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Our reform began in the countryside, and it has achieved initial success there. However, some rural areas are more developed than others. About 10 per cent of them, mainly the arid areas in the Northwest and some areas in the Southwest, have not yet lifted themselves out of poverty. It is our policy to let some people and some regions prosper before others, so that they can bring along the backward regions. The advanced regions have the obligation to help the backward. We keep to the socialist road in order to attain the ultimate goal of common prosperity, but it is impossible for all regions to develop at the same pace. We used to practise egalitarianism, with everyone "eating from the same big pot". In fact, that practice meant common backwardness and poverty, which caused us much suffering. The reform is designed, first and foremost, to break with egalitarianism, with the practice of having everyone "eat from the same big pot". It seems to me that we are taking the right path.

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To promote ethical progress and raise standards of conduct both inside and outside the Party, we must redouble our efforts and not relax them for a single day. And we should start by dealing with specific cases of wrongdoing. We should move promptly to handle the cases of economic criminals, of people who in their dealings abroad have forfeited national and personal dignity and of persons who have served as enemy agents. The great majority of high-ranking cadres and their children are good. However, some of the children have divulged economic information, become involved in intelligence networks or sold information and documents. We should concentrate on investigating typical cases of lawbreaking by the children of senior cadres, senior cadres themselves and well-known public figures, because crimes committed by these people cause the most serious damage. Dealing with these cases will have the most effect; it will show our determination to surmount all obstacles in strengthening the legal system and promoting ethical progress.

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Henry Grunwald (Editor-in-chief of Time): The Chinese Communist Party has always told people to be selfless and serve the people. In the current economic reform you are telling people to become prosperous, but some cases of graft and corruption and abuse of power have cropped up. What measures are you going to take to solve these problems?

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Comrades,

This National Conference has been a very good one. It has successfully accomplished the scheduled tasks. Now I should like to speak on four points.

First, about the general situation and the reform.

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We did a great deal of work between 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded, and 1976, when Chairman Mao Zedong passed away. We were particularly successful during the period of transition from new-democratic revolution to socialist revolution, in which we carried out agrarian reform and then, in the period of the First Five-Year Plan [1953-1957], engaged in large-scale industrialization and completed the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce.

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People abroad are making two kinds of comments about China's economic reform. Some commentators maintain that the reform will cause China to abandon socialism, while others hold that it will not. These last are far-sighted. All our reforms have the same aim: to clear away the obstacles to the development of the productive forces. In the past we carried out the new-democratic revolution. After the founding of the People's Republic, we completed agrarian reform and conducted the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce, thus establishing the socialist economic base. All this was a great revolution, which lasted for more than three decades. But in the many years following the establishment of the socialist economic base, we failed to work out policies that would create favourable conditions for the development of the productive forces. As a result, they developed slowly, the material and cultural life of the people did not improve rapidly enough, and the country could not free itself from poverty and backwardness. Under these circumstances, in December 1978, at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party, we were compelled to decide on a course of reform.

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We have only just begun to shift the economy of our special economic zones from a domestic orientation to an external orientation, and so we still don't have many good, exportable products. Until Shenzhen has become a city with an export-oriented economy, it cannot be truly considered a special economic zone, and it cannot be said to be developing properly. But I understand there has been some progress in this direction.

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