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 the
reform and opening up 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. In November 2003, Wen and his government introduced the slogan of "Five Comprehensive Coordinations" which outlined the Communist Party's priorities for harmonious and scientific development: mitigating urban-rural imbalances, interregional imbalances, socio-economic imbalances, human-environmental imbalances, and domestic-international imbalances. Chinese economy remained high growth rate throughout Wen's first term as Premier, which China has an average GDP growth rate of 11% between 2003 and 2008. 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, 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. Balancing regional development was a top priority early in Wen's Premiership. During his delivery of the Annual Work Report of the State Council in March 2004, Wen introduced
The Rise of the Central Regions campaign. This campaign included Hubei, Jiangxi, Henan, Hunan, Anhui, and Shanxi. Through it, the central government sought to further advance the already-occurring process of industrial transfer from coastal regions to the interior. 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. After the conclusion of the
2007 National People's Congress, Wen criticized the state of the economy in comments later described as the "Four Uns." Wen stated that after thirty
years of rapid economic growth, the economy was at risk of becoming unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable. == Second-term premiership ==