The upcoming Eleventh Five Year Plan, from 2006-10, will be a major test for China's communist leadership, headed by party general secretary Hu Jintao. One of the key policies of the plan calls for redressing the growing socio-economic imbalances between urban and rural areas in what officials have termed "building a new socialist countryside."

The Communist Party, which rose to power in the mid-twentieth century from origins as a peasant-based movement, is now battling to regain the confidence of the countryside or risk losing control of the constituency necessary for regime legitimacy and survival.

Frustrations are mounting in the Chinese countryside as provincial party and government leaders arrive in Beijing for the National People's Congress which begins Sunday. The rubberstamp parliament meets in full session for a week every year, and endorsing the objectives of the eleventh FYP will be at the top of the agenda.

According to recently released figures by the Ministry of Public Security, there were more than 87,000 cases of "serious incidents" of unrest in China during 2005, an increase of 13,000 over 2004. Cases range in size from small handfuls of people to protests involving thousands of participants.

The true nature of the problem is not fully understood, as the Chinese government regularly clamps down on rural unrest with media blackouts, including the detention of reporters. Villages are cordoned off and government security detachments, including regular police, paramilitary units, and in extreme cases the People's Liberation Army, are called in to restore order. Reports of violent suppression are commonplace.

Many of these disturbances involve corruption at the local level, with abuses of power and compensation funds going missing after land appropriation being two of the bigger causes of the corroding rural consent to continued communist rule.

Ouyang Song, a vice minister of the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China briefed reporters on issues billed as "promoting the education campaign to preserve the advanced nature of CPC members in countryside to provide organization guarantee to the construction of a new socialist countryside."

The vice minister stated the current education campaign to "Preserve the Advanced Nature of CPC Members" in rural areas began in late November 2005 and would continue until July 2006. It will involve a total of 19.23 million Party members in 645,000 rural CPC organizations.

Ouyang added the campaign for cadre education at all levels had been underway for 18 months, and included the participation of nearly all 70.8 million members of the CPC.

In a throwback to classic communist rhetoric, Ouyang said: "We firmly believe that with the high attention and wise leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Hu Jintao as the general secretary, deliberate arrangements of Party organizations, active participation of Party members and strong support from the public, this campaign is bound to reach predetermined goals by making accomplishments in practice, system construction and theoretical exploration."

When asked how many of the 'serious unrest' cases took place in rural areas, as well as the number of cadres at the grassroots level who were held responsible for not doing their job, Ouyang said: "We have seen the occurrence of mass incidents in rural areas occasionally and they have had some specific reasons behind them."

He said China was at a crucial juncture of transition from $1,000 to $3,000 dollars of per capita income, "therefore it is not only a golden opportunity for development, but also a period where we see prominent problems."

The CPC official stated that "although mass incidents only occur occasionally in limited areas of the countryside, they draw serious attention of the Party and the government which is working hard on it."

"The education campaign will have direct benefit on resolving the limited cases of mass incidents that occur in rural areas," Ouyang added. "As it unfolds party members have improved their political awareness, ideology and work style; as a result there has been a significant reduction of mass incidents caused by the poor work style of party officials."

While not providing any concrete numbers, Ouyang said, "through the campaign, rural party members have acquired knowledge and capability to reach out further to the people; as their attitude improved, the number of incidents caused by the bad attitude of party members have also reduced."

In response to a question about the severity and frequency of rural unrest, Ouyang said "we haven't heard of any riots or unrest, as for mass incidents, the number is dwindling.

"China is the most stable country in the world; this is recognized by the international community," he stated, adding it was natural for a country with a large population and territory undergoing rapid development "to see isolated cases of mass incidents in individual cases."

Ouyang said the CPC didn't believe that education and ideology alone can help stamp out corruption within the party; he emphasized the importance of prevention and punishment in setting up proper educational and institutional mechanism for party members. He promised that once a corruption case is detected, "we will try our best to investigate these cases and we will show no leniency to lawbreakers," adding "because of these efforts, progress has been made in containing corruption."

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