The Chinese President, Mr Jiang Zemin, yesterday pledged to fight corruption and to throw open party membership to the new rich in a speech marking the Communist Party's 80th birthday.
Reflecting the growing public concern at graft among high-ranking Party members, Mr Jiang promised that every corrupt act and every corrupt element would be "thoroughly investigated without pause and without tolerance".
Stressing that members of the world's largest Communist Party must be as accountable as public servants, he said: "The party must not be a haven for corrupt elements." During his two-hour speech delivered in the Great Hall of the People and broadcast live on state television as part of an 18-hour celebration, Mr Jiang trumpeted the party's achievements in revolutionary warfare and in post1980s economic development.
He said "no person or force" could stop China's reunification with Taiwan, the unfinished business of the civil war the Communists won in 1949.
The President gave a strong hint that the ban on private business owners becoming members of the Communist Party may be lifted. He said two decades of economic reform had raised living standards, created an economy of varied forms of ownership and generated disparate levels of wealth.
He said wealth cannot be used as a standard for whether the wealthy person is politically progressive or backward.
"What is important is the state of political ideology, how wealth was obtained, and how it is managed and utilised and what contribution has been made to socialist modernisation," he said.
Mr Jiang devoted a large section of his address to his "Three Represents" theory of advanced productive forces, advanced culture and appeal to a wider sector of the population.
Official statistics show that the Communist Party has 64.5 million members, 49 per cent of which are workers and peasants.
He said economic and technological change in China "did not change the importance of the working class".
President Jiang is expected to intensify the focus on broadening the party's support base and policing itself to fight corruption in the 15 months leading up to the 16th Communist Party Congress due to take place in autumn next year.
The President and other top leaders are expected to step down at the congress to make way for the "fourth generation" of communist leaders following the eras of Mao, Deng Xiaoping, and Mr Jiang.