CPC National Congress to open Friday   2002-11-06 11:05:15 The 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will open in Beijing on Friday. The 7th Plenary session of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has made the decision. A communique issued by the 7th Plenum says 186 members and 139 alternate members of the central committee were at the meeting. They were joined by members of the central commission for discipline inspection and other leading officials, although these didn't vote. In the chair was the CPC's political bureau. Jiang Zemin as the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee made a speech at the meeting. The body also discussed and approved a report, which will be presented by the 15th CPC Central Committee to this year's party congress. An amendment to the Constitution of the Communist Party has also been made. Both documents will be submitted to the congress for discussion, the plenum decided. A report about Wang Xuebing, the disgraced former president of the Construction Bank of China, was examined and approved. It was decided he would be stripped of his alternate membership in the Party Central Committee and expelled from the Party in response to allegations of corruption. In a review of the past 13 years, members said a breakthrough had been made under the Party's third－generation collective leadership under Jiang Zemin. The communique says this leadership, holding high the banner of the late leader Deng Xiaoping's theory, has united the party and people of all ethnic groups across China. Members said they thought China had been strengthened as a nation, and that progress had been achieved in peacefully reunifying the motherland. The communique says the achievements of the past 13 years will be seen as invigorating the Chinese nation, and that the experience of these years will be of long－term help in building socialism with Chinese characteristics. Guided by Deng Xiaoping Theory and Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents," members carried out in－depth discussions on major issues concerning China's reform, opening－up and socialist modernization drive in the new century. Full preparations were made for the convening of the 16th Party Congress.