Chinese leaders are seeking a new formula for expansion of the world's fastest-growing economy, which addresses the costs of growth such as environmental damage and a widening income gap. They want to switch to a more sustainable mode of development where China consumes and pollutes less.
But they face a quandary. While aware that China's current model of development, driven by investment and exports is unsustainable, they fear that recalibrating the economy might result in greater unemployment and political instability. As investment growth slows, the adverse social effects might imperil the political legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist party, which took power 58 years ago promising to deliver growth and rising prosperity.
In a nationally televised speech, which opened the annual session of the National People's Congress in Beijing Monday, Premier Wen Jiabao said China was not going to abandon the export-driven growth that has helped it become the world's fourth-largest economy.
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