BEIJING, Nov 8: President Jiang Zemin opened China’s most important political meeting in a decade here on Friday, outlining his vision of a nation powered by private capitalism but still under the control of the Communist Party.

Addressing 2,114 delegates in Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People at the start of the party’s 16th congress, Jiang said China’s rulers must free their minds “from the shackles of outdated notions, practices and systems”.

In what is likely to be his last major address before retiring as party chief, Jiang paid lip-service to the organization’s official Marxist base, but urged the pursuit of market reforms, calling for a quadrupling of China’s economic strength by 2020.

“Reform and opening up are ways to make China powerful,” said Jiang, standing in front of a red backdrop emblazoned with a vast hammer and sickle emblem.

Of particular note was Jiang’s allusions to a key — and highly controversial — reform due to be approved at the meeting: his own plan for capitalists to join the party.

“We should make a point of recruiting party members from among those in the forefront of work and production,” he said, using common party shorthand for the country’s wealthy entrepreneurs.

However, he stressed that whatever the effects of economic liberalization, the party elite should remain in firm control of China’s 1.3 billion people.

“We must uphold leadership by the (party) and consolidate and improve the state system, a people’s democratic dictatorship,” he said in his 90-minute speech.

“We should never copy any models of the political system of the West,” he added.

Jiang, 76, is among a string of elderly leaders expected to shed their party posts at the week-long Congress, the start of China’s first major leadership reshuffle since 1989.

Vice President Hu Jintao, 59, is tipped to take over as party head, and then become president next spring. The succession remains a complete secret, although it is due to be announced a day after the Congress ends.

Analysts said the repeated references to Jiang’s 13 years in power, during which China has liberated its economy while stagnating politically, appeared to mean his era was likely to end soon.

“This clearly indicates that Jiang will resign from his number one position as general secretary of the party,” said former party official Wu Guoguang, now of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.—AFP