Semi-Daily Journal

China's New Prime Minister

The Economist tries to get a sense of China's new prime minister, Wen Jibao...

Economist.com | China: THE new prime minister, Wen Jiabao, cannot be faulted on his grasp of the facts. He unflinchingly lists corruption, poverty, inefficient state enterprises, unemployment and non-performing loans as among his, and China's, "many problems". But he has given few clues as to how he plans to change things. On March 16th, Mr Wen took over from Zhu Rongji as manager of a fast-growing but structurally weak economy that is generating growing social tension. One of his biggest problems could be his own risk-averse style.

Unlike Mr Zhu, who had extensive dealings with foreign business and political leaders before taking over as prime minister in 1998, Mr Wen comes to the job as something of an enigma to outsiders. Whereas Mr Zhu honed his leadership skills as mayor of Shanghai, China's financial capital, Mr Wen has risen to the top through service in much lowlier posts, including 14 years in the impoverished province of Gansu. From the late 1980s, he worked as chief of staff to successive general secretaries of the Communist Party. It was only in 1998, when he became Mr Zhu's deputy, that he began assuming a more prominent role in helping to run the economy, particularly agricultural and financial affairs.

Mr Wen, a geologist by training, is certainly a man of considerable skills, not least as a political survivor. He emerged unscathed from the purges that followed the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989?even though he was a top aide to Zhao Ziyang, the liberal-minded party chief who lost his job and is still under house arrest for allegedly supporting the demonstrators. One of the best known photographs (see above) from the Tiananmen days shows Mr Zhao and, behind him, Mr Wen visiting students on the square...