Editor at Communist Party mouthpiece blasts leaders

A senior editor of Study Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, has launched a blistering broadside at the country's outgoing leaders, who are about to step down in a once-a-decade shake-up, accusing them of stalling long-overdue political reform and brewing a legitimacy crisis.

Offering a contrasting view to the official line, which has hailed the decade-long reign of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao as "golden and glorious", Deng Yuwen, a deputy editor of the newspaper, which is run by the party's central school, said they had "created more problems than achievements".

The rare, scathing critique of the political legacy of incumbent state leaders came at a particularly sensitive time, with Beijing scrambling to finalise preparations for the upcoming national party congress.

Highlighting the sensitivity of the topic, two-thirds of the article, believed to have first appeared on the website of Caijing Magazine late last week, has been removed by government censors. However, the full version of Deng's article could still be found on blogs.

Despite China's dazzling economic success and rising global clout, Deng presented a trenchant analysis of the mounting problems the country is facing, raising 10 important questions that are plaguing the country's further development and fanning public dissatisfaction.

The problems he listed included stagnant economic restructuring, pollution, income disparity, the notoriously outdated family planning and household registration polices, a looming energy crisis, moral degradation and the country's battered international image.

He said all those grave problems could be attributed to one particular cause: the lack of real political reform. Although it was a tough challenge to embrace growing public demands for greater democracy and accountability, "the authorities should at least offer some hope by showing their sincerity with concrete actions", Deng said.