I don’t think Grandpa Wen and his PR team gets enough credit. These guys are really good. Most politicians, even in China, cannot pull off stuff like this. With other guys, these events look stilted, engineered, and phony. Maybe it’s just me, but he pulls this kind of thing off on a regular basis.

And no, I’m not being sarcastic. I thought that Zhu Rongji had a very sophisticated approach towards the press in the 90s, particularly towards foreign audiences, but Wen really seems to know what he’s doing with all this. Having Xinhua in your pocket obviously helps, but that can only get you so far.

I would love to know how much time and effort his staff devotes to this stuff. Some of it is personality and style, but you have to figure that a lot is just hard work. Just going by the appearances, speeches, photo-ops, etc. that Wen has done regarding the earthquake, I’d say these guys deserve some sort of press relations award.