The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee met on Tuesday to discuss building a new socialist countryside, improving Party style and fighting corruption.

Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting.

They discussed a series of major policies the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have adopted to promote rural development which have resulted in successive, large-scale increases in grain output in the past two years.

Also discussed were further adjustments in agricultural structure, growth in farmers' income, major progress in rural tax reform, and the further development of social undertakings in the countryside.

While noting that China is facing sound opportunities in economic and social development in the countryside, the meeting called for hard, strenuous efforts as the country's agricultural infrastructure is still vulnerable, culturally backward, and it is increasingly difficult to increase the incomes of farmers.

At the meeting, the participants heard a report on the work of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which analyzed the current situation regarding Party style and establishing a clean government by eliminating corruption.

The ongoing campaign to maintain the “superior morality and unrivalled wisdom” of the CPC has scored new achievements this year, said Xinhua, yet corruption has continued to exist in some areas and departments, indicating that the task of fighting corruption and creating a clean government remains tough.

The Political Bureau called on all CPC members to remain calm, firmly improve the Party's style of work and clean government, and further reduce corruption.

It also said that the fundamental source of corruption has to be addressed.

(Xinhua News Agency December 21, 2005)