He ate dumplings with coal miners 720 meters underground on the eve
of the Chinese Lunar New Year, held an umbrella in the rain to
comfort flood victims and went to visit farmers at work in the
fields to gather information on the current agriculture situation
first-hand.
Wen
Jiabao, 60, won overwhelming endorsement yesterday for his
appointment as premier from nearly 3,000 deputies of the 10th
National People's Congress (NPC).
His man-of-the-people manner and down-to-earth touch has impressed
many officials as well as NPC deputies.
"He works very diligently and has always visited those at the grass
roots to do investigations and research," said Zhao Chunming,
former executive deputy director of the Office of the State Flood
Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, who joined Wen on several
inspection tours.
Tight Schedule
When Wen was vice premier, he was in charge of works related to
agriculture, flood-control and finance.
"Wen's working schedule was always very packed -- day and night,"
Zhao said, recalling Wen's inspection and visits.
He
usually visited flood-control projects during the day and held
meetings with local officials at night to learn as much as possible
about the situation from the grass roots, according to Zhao.
"During those trips, Wen never spent more than 20 minutes dining
and always insisted that the food be very simple," said Zhao in an
interview with China Daily.
When handling problems with flood control, which is high-risk work,
Wen would listen to the opinions of experts, but make the final
decisions himself, said Zhao.
"I
was deeply impressed by Wen's ability to guide agricultural work
and analyze the situation from daily work," said NPC deputy Wang
Shouchen, who is director of the Agricultural Commission of Jilin
Province.
Wang, who accompanied Wen during his visit to Jilin in May 1998,
said that Wen did not follow the routes arranged by local
officials.
He
visited here and there to chat with local farmers to learn of the
true conditions.
He
said that Wen has played an important role in pushing China's tax
reform forward in rural areas, which is now being conducted in 20
provinces and autonomous regions across the country and has
benefited a large number of farmers.
Another NPC deputy Yang Weize -- also mayor of Suzhou in East
China's Jiangsu Province -- said that Wen's expertise in
agriculture and finance are helpful for the new government to build
China into a materially and socially well-off society.
When Wen visited Jiangsu in September 2001 to investigate methods
of treating Taihu Lake's polluted water, Yang was at Wen's
side.
Wen urged local officials to attach importance to improving the
environmental conditions in Jiangnan -- regions south of the
Yangtze River -- by citing a poem With Memory of Jiangnan
written by Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) poet Bai Juyi (AD
772-846).
"We were impressed by his scholastic charisma," recalled Yang.
Born in 1942 in an alley in Tianjin, Wen enrolled in Beijing
Geological Institute in 1960, where he studied geological surveying
and mineral prospecting.
After graduating with a master's degree in structural geology in
1968, he chose to lead the hard life of a geologist in Gansu.
For 11 years of his youth, Wen traveled the mountain ranges of
Northwest China's Gansu Province as a technician and then deputy
head of a geological prospecting team.
On
one trip, his team encountered mountain torrents, and they had to
move their tents three times in one night, according to his former
colleagues.
Today his former colleagues in the Gansu Geological and Mining
Bureau still remember the "good-tempered young man who loves
reading."
It
was then in Gansu that Wen fell in love with Zhang Peili, his
colleague. The young woman was a graduate from the Geological
Department of Lanzhou University, Gansu. The two got married in the
1970s.
In
the following years Wen worked in the Gansu Geology and Mining
Bureau, the Ministry of Geology and Mining and the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
In
1998 he was elected vice premier of the State Council. Today, Wen
lives with his family in a simple apartment in downtown
Beijing.
Special New Year's Eve
"I
didn't recognize Vice Premier Wen at first glance and thought he
was a mining expert who came down to guide our work," said Liu Yi,
a miner of Fuxin Coal Group in Northeast China's Liaoning Province,
as he recalled his encounter with Wen 720 meters underground in a
coal mine on January 31.
Wen was visiting the coal miners at work on the Chinese New Year's
eve.
"It was dinner time."
"The 'expert' sat down among us, on the rails deep in the mine, and
had a box of jiaozi (dumplings) together with us. Someone
told me who he was, and we chatted for almost two hours about mine
safety and laid-off workers. It was wonderful," Liu recalled.
In
2000, Wen visited Fengning County, North China's Hebei Province,
which was then suffering from a severe drought.
The local officials who accompanied him once again noted that he
refused the arranged route at all. He stopped, here and there,
talked with farmers in the fields and visited their houses to see
the actual situation of rural life.
During a three-month period in 1998, he travelled five times to
Jiujiang, East China's Jiangxi Province, the frontline of the
battle against floods.
He
visited armies and local residents standing fast on the dam, helped
settle flood victims and made plans with hydraulic engineers and
government officials to cope with the problem.
At
the critical moment when the most important dam of the Yangtze
River was breached and Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei
Province, was threatened by floods, many urged Wen to blow up the
Jingjiang Dam, which would have flooded vast rural areas, to
protect Wuhan.
Wen, after consulting with hydraulic engineers, decided to defend
both the Jingjiang Dam and Wuhan. The decision proved right.
"During the battle against floods in 1998, we discovered that Wen
can inspire people in desperate conditions and he can quickly
evaluate the source of a problem.
"His sharp insight lead to the punishment of a group of government
officials who were derelict of their duties," said an official with
the Hubei Flood-control Headquarters, who declined to give his
name.
With his affinity to the common people, Wen does not have to depend
on government statistics to do his work.
"Wen has the ability to govern the over-all situation and is good
at handling issues from a strategical point of view," said NPC
Deputy Wang Shouchun, who gave a supporting vote to Wen.
(China Daily March 17, 2003)