What to make of Wen Jiabao?

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in New Delhi on Dec. 16, 2010. (Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images)

In what many are calling a bold move, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao made a trip to the country's highest petition bureau in Beijing, where ordinary people go to file grievances. Jiabao urged people to speak their minds, saying they should critcize the government and press for justice.

It's not exactly what you'd expect from the country that usually snuffs out the first sign of dissent.

"Please don't hold anything back, and give me the facts," Wen reportedly said to farmers and workers at the bureau. China's official state website reported that Wen asked officials at the bureau to address people's complaints responsibly.

No one seems to know quite what to make of the premier's visit. Wen has pushed for reforms in the past, and some say he represents a genuine liberal faction within the government. Others say it's all posturing, and Wen is simply placating the masses in order to maintain control.

"This may be the first time a central leader has done this. Even minor officials usually stay away from us," Liu Anjun, a veteran petitioner in Beijing who has run a support group for complainants, told the Reuters news agency. "It may be staged, but it's a signal to people."

Millions of Chinese visit petition bureaus every year to demand redress and are often treated as an embarrassing nuisance, even a threat to control. Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan said petitioners in some cases have been committed to mental institutions, even though there was nothing wrong with them.

Wen's visit comes on the heels of President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington earlier this month, during which U.S. President Barack Obama pushed Jintao on human rights.

What China means by "human rights," however, is different from what the United States means, as pointed out by Peter Ford in the Christian Science Monitor. "You might think, for example, that one important thing that needs to be done is to free Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning political dissident who is serving an 11-year sentence," Ford wrote.

But, to China, "human rights include economic rights," he continued. And "China has improved living standards for the mass of its people beyond all expectations. Those are the sorts of things Hu means when he talks about a lot still needing to be done."

Another piece of the puzzle is Wen's looming retirement as premier in early 2013. While he has vocalized the call for reform in the past, concrete action has yet to follow. And that isn't likely to change with a change of regime on the horizon.