Beijing ? China’s president vowed Saturday that his country would continue to open up and reform in 2006, pursuing a goal of peaceful development as it plays a bigger role on the world stage.

In his annual year-end speech, President Hu Jintao also touted China’s strong economic progress and said his people’s living standards have improved.

He also touched upon the mainland’s relations with territories Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing insists is also part of its territory.

Hu said the coming year will mark the beginning of a five-year economic plan, which calls for developing the poverty-stricken countryside in an effort to narrow the growing and politically sensitive gap between rich and poor.

The leadership has been grappling with increasing unrest, mostly in the country’s vast hinterland, home to 800 million of China’s 1.3 billion people.

Anger at corruption, heavy taxes and the seizure of farmland by officials for development in areas where some families get by on only a few hundred dollars a year has triggered increasingly frequent and violent clashes.