When answering a question concerning a legendary Chinese painting "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains", Wen said he he hopes to see a reunited China through the joint efforts of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The painting was burned into two in a fire in 1650. The right part, 51.4-cm long, is kept in the mainland's Zhejiang Museum, while the left part, 636.9-cm long, is held in Taipei's Palace Museum.

The two parts will be displayed together in a four-month exhibition beginning June in Taiwan.

The scroll painting of unusual length was created by famed painter Huang Gongwang (1269-1354) in 1350. It vividly depicts an early autumn scene on the banks of the Fuchun River in Hangzhou. It is regarded as one of the greatest achievements of traditional Chinese landscape painting technique.

"I hope that, through the joint efforts of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, we will see an integrated and reunited China, and that a complete painting will be placed together forever," Wen said.

According to Wen, China is to set its annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for the 2011-2015 period at 7 percent, lower than the 7.5 percent for the previous five years, when China's economy grew at an annual rate of about 10 percent from 2006 to 2010.

"We'll never seek a high economic growth rate and size at the price of the environment, as that would result in unsustainable growth with industrial overcapacity and intensive resource consumption," Wen said.

The central government would adopt new performance evaluation criteria for local governments and give more weight to efficiency, environment protection and living standards, said Wen.

He said transforming the growth pattern was not easy.

"In some places, I have seen, urban construction is very fast, but as you walk along, you see shabby rural streets and housing, and some farmers are still hard pressed to pay schools the 100-yuan heating fees for their kids," Wen said.

"Therefore, I tell local officials, wouldn't it be better if we construct fewer high buildings and spend the funds for expanding the urban scale on raising living standards?" he said.

"In the final analysis, we should change the criteria for evaluating officials' work. The supreme criterion for assessing their performance is whether the people feel happy and satisfied, rather than skyscrapers."

Wen began his online chat with netizens at 9 a.m. Sunday jointly hosted by the central government website (www.gov.cn) and Xinhua News Agency website (www.news.cn).

Premier Wen held online chats with netizens on Feb. 28, 2009 and Feb. 27, 2010, respectively.