Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, set to leave office next year after a decade in power, said his nation must adopt political change to support an economic transformation that has produced rapid development at the cost of a widening wealth gap.
“Without successful political reform, it’s impossible to carry out economic reform,” Wen, 69, told reporters in Beijing yesterday in a three-hour press conference closing the legislature’s annual gathering. “There’s even the possibility of losing what we’ve achieved.”