Off Script at China\'s 18th Party Congress

BEIJING - As China's 18th Communist Party Congress moved into the weekend, a key part of the show was in full swing - meetings of party delegations from each province and key groups such as central government bodies. The provincial meetings are normally scripted affairs, attended by some of the men (and the top provincial leaders, like the national ones, are virtually all men,) who will be the future national leaders.

Yet, brief media question-and-answer sessions at the end of the meetings can produce moments of startling clarity, and some embarrassment, for powerful officials normally shielded from critical questioning.

On Friday afternoon, one delegation was hit by a frank question from an 11-year-old girl who wanted to know when she could safely eat snacks again, the South China Morning Post reported. China is roiled by food safety scandals including poisoned milk. recycled edible oils, carcinogenic food dyes and the persistently heavy use of pesticides, oft en banned ones, causing major public discontent.

(For more on the congress, including President Hu Jintao's call for
“no old path, no foreign models,” see this report by the state-run
Global Times.)

Here's what the SCMP said, in a story that is behind a paywall:

An 11-year-old reporter's unexpectedly pointed question about
poisoned food left some top party ministers dumbstruck and embarrassed yesterday, shaking up an otherwise tightly scripted 18th party congress event.

Sun Luyuan , a grade-six pupil representing the Chinese Teenagers News, asked officials gathered for a key group meeting how the country's food safety record had got so bad that she and her classmates could no longer eat snacks.

I love snacks, but I don't dare to eat snacks now and neither do my classmates, as there are so many poisoned foods on the market,' the Beijing girl said. “So my question to all the minister-level uncles and aunties is: how can we children eat foods without concern?”

As the SCMP reported: “The question broke the otherwise lethargic atmosphere in the meeting room as officials suddenly straightened in their seats.”

Yet if the question was a shocker, the responses were less illuminating. The education minister, Yuan Guiren, delivered “a stock answer,” noting that food safety was “a global concern and that problems occur sometimes,” the SCMP reported. “We have prepared a series of oversight systems to guarantee food safety,” he said.

“Sun said she was happy with the answer and would pass it to her
anxious classmates. She said she chose the question on her own after reading about so many food safety scandal stories.”

“‘I believe the ministers will find a solution, and yes, I'm
optimistic,” Ms. Sun said.

There was another unscripted moment on Friday at the Hunan province meeting, when a Hong Kong-based reporter from Asia T elevision asked the Hunan party secretary, Zhou Qiang, about the controversial death in his province in June of Li Wangyang, a democracy activist who had spent two decades in jail and was found hanging, his feet touching the floor, in a hospital room shortly after giving an interview to Hong Kong television in which he vowed to continue his struggle for democracy in China.

It's important to know that Mr. Zhou, 52, is considered a possible
candidate for a top national post in the next, or sixth, generation of
leaders set to assume power in 2022, having served as the head of the Communist Youth League, a post previously occupied by the president, Hu Jintao, as well as Li Keqiang, who is tapped to enter the Standing Committee of the Politburo next week and become prime minister for the 5th generation. Hunan province has a population of 65 million and GDP in 2011 of 1.9 billion renminbi or $304 million.

I headed to the Hunan province meeting to observe Mr. Zh ou.
Inside the Hunan Room (each province has a room named after it,) a showy, white-and-gold space with heavy, glistening chandeliers and a giant painting of a striding Mao Zedong surrounded by crowds â€" Mao was a Hunan native â€" Mr. Zhou took six questions. The first four were from “friendly” media, including the People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency.

Their questions dwelled on economic, environmental and legal issues. Then independent Hong Kong and Taiwan correspondents began shouting for a turn. Mr. Zhou, who has heavy, crescent-shaped eyebrows and speaks smoothly, seeming to handle awkward situations with wit, agreed, laughing.

But the window of opportunity was small â€" just three minutes were
allocated to two questions from Taiwan and Hong Kong media. (The first four questions had taken up about half an hour.) Though I had my arm raised, I was not picked.

Mr. Zhou said little. Asked by a Taiwan reporter about talk of his promotion, he de livered a stock answer: “What we're talking about today is the provincial work report. I am a local Hunan leader, and my job is to continue to do Hunan local work well.”

About Mr. Li, the deceased democracy activist, he said: “Hunan police invited the most famous domestic forensics experts and investigation administrators, and they have made their evaluation, we've already made our criminal report, and all the conclusions are on our Web site, I suggest you visit the Hunan province Web site, the report is very detailed, very expert.”

The Hunan government says that Mr. Li committed suicide, while others, especially in Hong Kong, suspect murder. For more, read this by my colleague in Beijing, Andrew Jacobs.

Then reporters were ushered outside. Returning a few minutes later to fetch a forgotten coat, I discovered a very different atmosphere. The stiffness had departed with the media. Officials were chatting freely, their body language morphed from wary to relaxed.

Perhaps the real business was beginning. Leaving the first time, a Hunan official had grasped my arm and pushed me towards the exit. This time, another official shooed me out, with hurried hand gestures.