Doubt Cast on Chinese Leader’s Future : Politics: The People’s Congress amends Premier Li Peng’s annual report, tilting toward reformers in their conflict with conservatives.

China’s Parliament cast new doubt Friday on the political future of Premier Li Peng by amending a key government report to add a warning against excessive leftism.

The decision to revise the report, which Li delivered last month at the opening of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, is widely seen as an attempt by Communist Party reformers to undercut the power of Li and other hard-line leaders.

“These are outstanding results for the reformists,” commented a Chinese intellectual who favors rapid change. “This formulation is a big defeat for the conservative faction. Li Peng, as the point man of the faction, is definitely weakened.”

It is possible that other factors, such as a wish to maximize the democratic and reformist image of the basically rubber-stamp congress, also played a role in the handling of Li’s report and subsequent revisions.

A report by the premier is a key feature of the annual parliamentary sessions. Drafts of this “government work report” are circulated to high officials for criticism and revision even before the congress opens.

Once formally delivered, the report is discussed by delegates, and on closing day, the full congress usually approves dozens of minor adjustments to the document. The process is meant to give the impression that the congress actually exercises decision-making power. In fact, it is firmly controlled by the same small group of top leaders who control the Communist Party, the government and the army.

Li’s report incorporated much pro-reformist rhetoric taken from talks made by senior leader Deng Xiaoping during a recent South China tour that was aimed at promoting a new wave of economic reform. However, it did not include an important ideological statement by Deng, already endorsed by the policy-setting Politburo, that called for opposition to any excessive leftism that might interfere with economic reforms.

The Parliament’s Communist Party-controlled leadership decided, at a closed session earlier this week, to insert the anti-leftist phrase, plus about 150 minor changes, into the report. This kind of ideological decision reflects factional infighting at top levels of the party, rather than the workings of parliamentary democracy.

The entire congress then approved this decision Friday in its closing session, by a vote of 2,583 to 10, with 27 formal abstentions and 13 delegates who failed to press their electronic voting buttons.

The key inserted sentence, according to a report by the official New China News Agency, declares: “To accelerate the reform and opening to the outside, it is crucial for cadres at all levels to further enhance their consciousness of implementing the party’s basic line, and guard mainly against ‘leftist deviations’ while watching out for rightist deviations.”

Criticism of “leftist deviations” is generally seen as aimed against hard-line ideologues who oppose such measures as the expansion of China’s fledgling stock markets or other capitalistic reforms. “Rightist deviations” refers to such things as attempts to overthrow Communist rule through street demonstrations or other forms of radical political opposition. The importance of the new formulation lies in its call to guard “mainly” against leftist deviations.

Li is viewed as only a cautious reformer in the economic sphere and a hard-liner politically. This new ideological warning thus can serve more radical reformers as a political weapon against Li himself and his supporters in the fields of media, culture and propaganda.

Deng, 87, made use of Li to help bring China’s political situation back under strict control after the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing. But on economic issues, Deng is believed to favor other leaders who are more enthusiastic reformers.

It is not clear why Li failed to include the warning against leftism in his original report when even the Politburo, on which he sits, had already approved it. The reasons presumably involved not only his own discomfort with the phrase, but also that of elderly hard-liners, even more rigid than he, who have been his political patrons.

By declining to put the phrase into the report himself, and waiting instead for the congress leadership to dictate its inclusion, he has suffered some public embarrassment. But he also may have avoided alienating important backers. Beyond this, he provided the congress an opportunity to appear democratic and to generate further publicity for reform.

Even among those Western and Chinese observers who believe that events of recent weeks have badly wounded Li politically, very few expect him to step down any time soon. Current political maneuverings are widely seen as aimed at an important Communist Party congress scheduled for late this year. That congress will have the power to reshuffle the Politburo, and it is also expected to set the stage for many changes in government personnel at next year’s National People’s Congress.

Times researcher Nick Driver contributed to this article.