Hu Jintao no relation member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party
Wen Jiabao (born 15 September 1942) is a Chinese retired politician who served as the premier of China from 2003 to 2013. In his capacity as head of government, Wen was regarded as the leading figure behind China's economic policy. From 2002 to 2012, he held membership in the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the country's de facto top power organ, where he was ranked third out of nine members and after general secretary Hu Jintao and Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
He worked as the chief of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party between 1986 and 1993, and accompanied Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang as Zhao's personal secretary to Tiananmen Square during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, where Zhao called on protesting students to leave the square and after which Zhao was removed from his position within the Party. In 1998, Wen was promoted to the post of Vice Premier under Premier Zhu Rongji, his mentor, and oversaw the broad portfolios of agriculture and finance.
Wen was dubbed "the people's premier" by both domestic and foreign media. Instead of concentrating on GDP growth in large cities and rich coastal areas, Wen advocated for advancing policies considered more favorable towards farmers and migrant workers. Wen's government reduced agricultural taxes and pursued ambitious infrastructure projects. Following the global financial crisis of 2008, Wen's government injected four trillion yuan into the economy as part of a stimulus program.
Seen as the leading member of the reform wing of the Communist Party, Wen's family came under scrutiny by investigative journalists for having accumulated a massive fortune during his time in government, casting a cloud over his legacy shortly prior to his retirement. He left office in 2013 and was succeeded by Li Keqiang.First-term premiership
Wen entered the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, China's highest ruling council, in November 2002, ranked third out of nine members (After Hu Jintao and Wu Bangguo). During the transition of authority as Hu Jintao assumed the general secretary and presidency in November 2002 and March 2003 respectively, Wen's nomination as premier was confirmed by the National People's Congress with over 99% of the delegates' vote. After taking over as Premier, Wen oversaw the continuation of economic reforms and has been involved in shifting national goals from economic growth at all costs to growth which also emphasizes more egalitarian wealth, along with other social goals, such as public health and education. Wen's broad range of experience and expertise, especially cultivated while presiding over agricultural policies under Zhu Rongji, has been important as the "fourth generation" sought to revitalize the rural economy in regions left out by the past two decades of reform. In addition, the Chinese government under Wen has begun to focus on the social costs of economic development, which include damage to the environment and to workers' health. This more comprehensive definition of development was encapsulated into the idea of a xiaokang society.
Initially regarded as quiet and unassuming, Wen is said to be a good communicator and is known as a "man of the people." Wen has appeared to make great efforts to reach out to those who seem left out by two decades of stunning economic growth in rural and especially western China. Unlike Jiang Zemin and his protégés on the Politburo Standing Committee, who form the so-called "Shanghai clique", both Wen and Hu hail from, and have cultivated their political bases, in the vast Chinese interior. Many have noted the contrasts between Wen and Hu, "men of the people", and Jiang Zemin, the flamboyant, multilingual, and urbane former mayor of Shanghai, the country's most cosmopolitan city.
Like Hu Jintao, whose purported brilliance and photographic memory have facilitated his meteoric rise to power, Wen is regarded as well-equipped to preside over a vast bureaucracy in the world's most populated and perhaps most rapidly changing nation. In March 2003, the usually self-effacing Wen was quoted as saying, "The former Swiss ambassador to China once said that my brain is like a computer", he said. "Indeed, many statistics are stored in my brain."Mild-tempered and conciliatory, especially compared to his predecessor, the tough, straight-talking Zhu Rongji, Wen's consensual management style has enabled him to generate a great deal of good will, but has also created some opponents who are in support of tougher policy decisions. Notably, Wen was widely known to have clashed with then-Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu over the central government's policies.Wen was involved in two major episodes involving public health. In early 2003, he was involved in ending the official inaction over the SARS crisis. On 1 December 2004, he became the first major Chinese official to publicly address the problem of AIDS, which has devastated parts of Yunnan and Henan and threatens to be a major burden on Chinese development. Since May 2004, Wen made various visits to communities devastated by AIDS, trips shown prominently on national media. By showing these actions, Wen displayed an effort to reverse years of what many activists have described as a policy of denial and inaction. Furthermore, Wen is concerned about the health and safety of previous drug addicts; since March 2004, Wen had visited several drug addict treatment facilities in southern China and addressed the issue to the patients in person, recognizing that AIDS is more likely to be spread by drug abuse and the reuse of hypodermic syringes than by sexual contact.Wen was known to conduct visits to relatively poor areas of China's countryside randomly to avoid elaborate preparations to appease officials and hide the real situation, which is done often in China. At committee meetings of the State Council, Wen made it clear that the rural wealth disparity problem must be addressed. Along with general secretary Hu Jintao, the government focused on the "Three Rural Issues", namely, agriculture, the countryside, and farmers, and emphasized these core areas as requiring further work and development. The Hu-Wen administration abolished the thousand year old agricultural tax entirely in 2005, a bold move that significantly changed the rural economic model. But despite these initiatives, Wen has been criticized for allowing the urban-rural gap to actually increase during his tenure.Like Zhu Rongji, Wen is generally seen as a popular communist official with the Chinese public. His attitude is seemingly sincere and warm, triggering comparisons with former premier Zhou Enlai. Wen spent Chinese New Year in 2005 with a group of coal miners in a Shanxi coal mine. To many, Wen has gained the image of being the "people's premier", a populist, and an ordinary Chinese citizen who knows and understands ordinary people's needs. In an annual meeting of the Chinese Authors Association, Wen spoke for over two hours to the delegates without looking at script. To foreign media, Wen was also the highest figure in the Chinese government to give free press conferences, often facing politically sensitive and difficult questions regarding subjects such as Taiwan Independence, Tibetan independence and human rights.
In December 2003, Wen visited the United States for the first time. During the trip, Wen was able to get President George W. Bush to issue what many saw as a mild rebuke to the then President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Chen Shui-bian. Wen has also been on visits to Canada and Australia, mostly on economic issues. Wen also visited Japan in April 2007 in what was termed the "de-thawing journey", where he characterized the relationship between the Asian powers as for "mutual benefit". He also met with Emperor Akihito and played baseball.On 15 March 2005, after the anti-secession law was passed, by a majority of 2,896 to nil, with two abstentions by the National People's Congress, Wen said: "We don't wish for foreign intervention, but we are not afraid of it." as an allusion to the United States' stance on Taiwan. That earned him a long round of applause that was rare even by Chinese standards.
On 5 March 2007, Wen announced plans to increase the military budget. By the end of 2007 the military budget rose 17.8 percent from the previous year's 45 billion dollars, creating tension with the United States.There were rumors about Wen's retirement and reputed clashes with former Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu before the party's 17th Party Congress. Some sources suggested that Wen would ask to retire due to fatigue. Ultimately, Wen stayed on the Premier job, and was responsible for the drafting of the important speech delivered by Party general secretary Hu Jintao outlining China's direction in the next five years.
In January 2008, while during the midst of severe snowstorms, Premier Wen made his way south and visited train stations in Changsha and Guangzhou, addressing the public while calming their mood for long train delays.
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