Lack of reform may invite another Cultural Revolution, chinese Premier Wen Jiabao

BEIJING: China risks repeat of the upheaval of the 'Cultural Revolution' unless the one party-ruled Communist nation opts for "urgent" political reforms, Premier Wen Jiabao warned today in a dramatic farewell address.

Wen raised the spectre of a new Cultural Revolution in which late Chinese strongman Mao Zedong purged the reformists in the party, as a parting shot after a 10-year-term as Prime Minister to tell the country's closed leadership that lack of reform may invite such chaos again.

A vocal proponent of political reforms, 69-year-old Wen made his most strident call for change in the nationally televised annual press conference, saying that without political reforms, economic reforms cannot be carried out.

Saying that "reform in China has come to a critical stage", Wen said, "Without a successful political structural reform it is impossible for us to fully institute economic structural reform and the gains we have made in this area may be lost."

Wen was addressing the media at the conclusion of the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), which will be his last as he is set to step down later this year.

While pressing his case for reforms, Wen evoked the spectre of Mao's decade long Cultural Revolution that ended in 1976 in which thousands were eliminated in the name of ideological purges, leaving China economically bankrupt.

Wen reminded the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) that the struggle by Mao's successor, Deng Xiaoping against Mao wife Jiang Qing, who committed suicide in 1991 and her supporters known as the gang of four who opposed the reforms.

"After the crackdown on the gang of four our party adopted the resolution on several historical matters and took the important decision of conducting reform and opening in China. However the mistake of Cultural Revolution and impact feudalism yet to be fully eliminated," he said.

"New problem that have cropped up in China's society which will not be fundamentally resolved and such historical tragedy as the Cultural Revolution may happen again," he warned in his three-hour-long press conference.