Jiang took aim at 'rash thoughts' in meeting of top leaders

What do the mainland's top leaders talk about when they lock themselves up for 51/2 days of selfcriticism?

A report by former president Jiang Zemin to the Politburo Standing Committee, the top echelon of politics, in January 2000 after a marathon self-criticism session may shed some light.

'Some Politburo Standing Committee members feel that their ways of thinking are sometimes rash and subjective, and their working styles are sometimes too simple and rigid,' Mr Jiang said in a report released in the three-volume set The Selected Works of Jiang Zemin, which was published on Thursday.

'Because of a variety of reasons, [their] understandings of the real situations at the grass-roots and the emotions, requests and wishes of the public are not comprehensive, in-depth and concrete.

'When they go to the grass-roots level for inspections, there are times that they do not meet the requirements to keep their retinue small and simple, and work hard in poor conditions.'

The summarised self-criticisms of the top leaders may not be exactly scathing but they remain rare in a political culture in which every word the leadership utters is treated like a royal decree by the state media.