In Sichuan

Given the prominence of Wen Jiabao during the Wenchuan earthquake disaster, it's worth considering Jane Macartney's insightful exchange with him in September 2006: How books and learning reveal mind of a man who will shape future.

Excerpt:

Asked about his late-night reading preferences and what anxieties gave him insomnia, Wen Jiabao displayed the depth of his knowledge of China’s classics and the breadth of his interests beyond politics.

He told The Times that the question was a difficult one to answer. “You are actually asking about my reading and thinking.”

Rather than answer directly, the Prime Minister chose to quote from writings that he found most pertinent to his life.

“They will tell you something about me, what is on my mind and what I read.”

His choices ranged from a 19th-century Chinese general credited with military victories in the far northwest but whose poems were banned until 1993, to the thoughts of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

One theme ran through all Mr Wen’s choices of aphorism: his anxieties and concerns for the trials of the Chinese people and the tribulations ahead for his country.

Mr Wen paused for what seemed like an age as he gathered his thoughts, his emotions on display. For emphasis he leaned forward in his elaborately carved rosewood chair, a crocheted anti-macassar placed over the padded red seat-back.

Rarely has a Chinese leader shown such erudition in public. In doing so, he opened a window on to a way of thought that can be traced back to the young idealists who made it their mission to try to modernise China in its declining years as an imperial power in the late 19th century.

Mr Wen gestured above his head and then held his clenched hand to his heart as he quoted Kant. His voice quivered when he recited a verse by the 3rd-century BC statesman Qu Yuan, regarded by many as the father of Chinese poetry. “Long did I sigh to hold back tears, saddened I am by the grief of my people.”