Chinese leaders join lawmakers in panel discussions

BEIJING, March 5 -- China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang and other leaders on Wednesday joined the country's lawmakers in panel discussions at the ongoing annual parliamentary session.

Zhang called on lawmakers to turn the country's reform blueprints into reality with confidence and pragmatic spirit.

"We should strengthen our confidence in reform and realize that it is the only way out," said Zhang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), while joining discussion with deputies from east China's Zhejiang Province.

Calling 2014 "a year of reform," Zhang urged the legislators to work with a down-to-earth spirit and put great importance on the implementation of reform measures.

He also stressed that the fundamental direction for the deepening of reform should be upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng attended the panel discussion with lawmakers from the central province of Hubei.

Yu urged NPC deputies to comprehensively deepen reform while also considering the situations in different areas.

Yu, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said that unreasonable industry monopolies should be broken up in a bid to let the market play a decisive role in allocating resources.

He also urged environmentally friendly economic development.

"We should enhance mechanism building to better protect the environment," he said.

Liu Yunshan, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, attended the panel discussion with lawmakers from north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

He stressed social stability and ethnic unity in the discussion.

"We should promote the tradition of all ethnic groups 'breathing the same air and sharing the same fate,'" he said. "We should cherish ethnic unity in the way we cherish our own eyes."

Wang Qishan, head of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, underlined anti-corruption when he joined discussion with deputies from Beijing.

"The battle against corruption is a major political task of the Party," Wang said, adding that it is necessary to deepen the reform of the discipline inspection system.

The NPC annual session opened Wednesday in Beijing.