Wen Jiabao turns to health care and other social services

As the except below from the FT explains, Premier Wen Jiabao's (sometimes referred to as "Grandfather Wen" for his empathetic manner towards the common people or laobaixing) focus on domestic issues is a response to very real problems in China as well as a way to distinguish the current regime from the previous one. Because of these two powerful incentives, this policy orientation should be durable and will benefit businesses in health care and education, especially those with products or services suitable for the less well off.

Mr Wen has spurned the bright lights of the "new China" and the heavily publicised meetings with foreign business leaders that were a feature of the administration of Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji. Instead, he has played empathiser-in-chief, sharing meals with migrant workers, hugging Aids sufferers and heading underground for photo opportunities with black-faced coal miners.





Part of his approach is Politics 101 for any incoming government, which needs to distinguish itself from its predecessor before striking out on its own. And part is because foreigners, by and large, do not need cultivating any more. They are already here, or on their way. But most of all, Mr Wen's approach is an acknowledgement of the deep fissures left by China's rush for growth and the collapse of education, health and social services for the poor in cities and the countryside in the past decade.