Chinese Premier Focuses on Pollution and the Poor

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao conceded Monday that China was failing on important energy and pollution goals and declared that the country must become more energy-efficient and quickly improve environmental protection to safeguard the long-term health of its booming economy.
Mr. Wen, making China’s equivalent of the State of the Union address(國情咨文), also pledged more government spending on education and health care, particularly for poorer residents in rural areas
His nationally televised speech, which opened the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, was generally short on specifics but emphasized past themes like social equality and the need to reduce the income gap between rural and urban residents.
Mr. Wen has spoken before about the importance of environmental protection, but he gave the issue greater emphasis in his speech, describing plans to shut down “backward” steel and iron foundries((鑄造廠） and inefficient, polluting power plants. He said development projects would have to meet national environmental standards and vowed（發誓） that China must “bring pollution under control.”