Protester disrupts World Bank president's news conference

A protester disrupted a World Bank news conference chaired by its president Robert Zoellick in Beijing on Tuesday, claiming the multilateral lender's new report on China's economic future was "poison" and made recommendations that would bring no benefits to the country or its people.

The demonstration came as the World Bank released a 468-page report in conjunction with a Chinese government think tank on Monday that urged a series of market-oriented reforms that would cut state involvement in industry and boost the private sector.

Du Jianguo, describing himself as a self-taught independent researcher, jumped up to the podium during Tuesday's news conference and declared his views seconds after Zoellick began speaking.

Handing out protest papers to some journalists in the front row seats, Du was then thrown out of the conference by World Bank staff.

His statement, which carried the English title "WB, Go Home with Your Poison!" (sic) said the World Bank was trying to sell China "old cliches as a wonderful panacea".

The angry man told Reuters the World Bank's proposals to reform China's banks and state-owned enterprises had ulterior motives.

"They (World Bank) nevertheless sell the plan to China, suggesting Chinese banks learn from the U.S. and learn from the Wall Street, do they want Chinese banks to become cheaters and parasites just like those American banks? Chinese state-owned enterprises are now very powerful and therefore become the competitors of the western countries. You (World Bank) suggest to divide the state-own enterprises, this is in fact helping the American and other western enterprises to ruin their competitors," he said.

The news conference continued after the disruption, with the outgoing World Bank chief saying he wasn't shocked by the unexpected interruption.

"Frankly, this isn't new to me and my work over the public service for the past 30 years. I was a trade representative so I dealt with demonstrations and worse," he said.

"So I'll ask for a translation of this gentleman's paper. We'll look at it as well as other comments." he added calmly.

In face of Du's criticism, Zoellick insisted in the World Bank's stance upon the launch of the report on China's financial future.

"I think many experts have the view that state-owned enterprises have benefited from very inexpensive financing, preferred positions in the market. And they've gained very large retained earnings that have led to China savings but have not necessarily benefited all the Chinese people," he said.

He argued that the changes put forward in newly released report have the interests of the Chinese people at heart.

"So to reduce China's global savings rate and also benefit the Chinese people, if a lot of those dividends are sent back to provide social benefits for China's people, you'll have structural change and help support some of the social security systems," he said.

Zoellick was in Beijing for the release of the report, 'China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious and Creative High-Income Society', which was jointly prepared by the World Bank Development Research Centre (DRC) of the State Council of China.

The report examines the country's strategic choices, the risks and opportunities in the next two decades, and makes a series of recommendations for the country's growth model.

Protester Du is not a well-known researcher in China, and his personal blog on Sina.com covers a wide range of topics from banking profits to the economic development of Chongqing, held up by many as a model of potential Chinese economic development.