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All these worries will not impede us from introducing our reforms. It's almost a year since we started the economic restructuring of the urban areas, and I think we have a good momentum. If the reforms in the countryside worked out very well in three years, I think it will take five years for the reforms in the city. So I hope our friends will keep watching us very closely. Two years from now, three years from now, four years from now or five years from now, we will see what changes will have happened. Personally, I can say I am full of confidence because, as far as China is concerned, there is no other road China can take. This is the only road China can take. Other roads will only lead to poverty and backwardness, and I think this is the only road toward prosperity [that] China can take.
On preventing China's new economic freedoms from leading to abuses and corruption. I think we will do two things. First, we will do it through education and second, we will do it through the legal system. This, of course, is a longtime task, and I don't think it can work overnight. And I don't think a few remarks of a certain person would help eliminate these bad things. But I am confident that our party and country and people are able to eliminate all these bad things.
On how fast China should grow. We have to work out an appropriate growth rate according to the experience of the past seven years. In recent months it has been too high [an overall industrial growth rate of 23% for the first six months of 1985], and this needs to be overcome. In the next five-year plan we would like to achieve a condition under which China will be able to have a long-term, stable, enduring development not only in this century but in the next.
On the chances that the economic reforms will survive. The cadres of the central government and other regional offices at the national level will be people younger in age and more competent professionally. That will guarantee continuity of our policies. Many foreign friends are worried about the continuity of our policies, and have kept asking us this question. The answer I give them is always like this: I think there are two things from which people can judge whether we can continue the policy or not. First, and most important, is to decide whether the policy is correct or not. If it is incorrect, what is the point of having it continue? If it is correct, it will help develop the social forces of production. If it could enable people to improve their lives gradually, then I think the policy itself is a sure guarantee of its continuity. Second, the kind of people who are actually involved is very important. From the top down to the bottom, we need a large number of people who can explore these new things and [who] are energetic. We started doing all these things at the third plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee [in 1978].