China’s President, Hu Jintao, flew to the devastated city of Mianyang yesterday in his first visit to the Sichuan region hit by the massive earthquake on Monday. He was met there by Wen Jiabao, the Prime Minister, who has been present at the scene for almost all this week, directing the rescue efforts and presenting a compassionate public face of the Beijing Government to its displaced and distressed citizens. The image of him wearing a yellow hard hat and comforting a manifestly hungry child has been especially striking. While his role has doubtless been overblown by the state media, Mr Wen has long been a splash of colour in the grey ranks of the Communist Party leadership. This is not the first time he has been willing to engage in direct personal intervention. He has, for example, often travelled to the sites of China’s many coalmine explosions.

History as well as decency may have shaped his actions. Natural disasters and the response to them have had political implications in China. The last quake of a similar magnitude to occur in China happened on July 28, 1976, with Tangshan at its epicentre. The Communist Party hierarchy then was paralysed in a power struggle as Chairman Mao lay dying (he expired in September). Scientific warnings that a catastrophe was imminent were ignored. The extent of what had occurred was downplayed, even though at least 250,000 people lost their lives, the army’s efforts were inadequate and all international aid was refused. The Gang of Four, headed by Madame Mao Jiang Qing, insisted that the earthquake should not distract the nation from the most important issue that it faced – denouncing Deng Xiaoping and cheering the Cultural Revolution.

One visit to Tangshan by Hua Guofeng, the little known Prime Minister, who had replaced the deceased Zhou Enlai merely months beforehand, changed the dynamics of the situation. His trip and his orders to intensify assistance to those whose lives had been upended by the earthquake was exceptionally well received. The military, in particular, reassessed their political alignments. Two months later, with Mao buried, Hua had the Gang of Four arrested, brought the Cultural Revolution to an end and paved the way for Deng to return to power (and eventually displace him).

The reaction to events this time will not be anything like as dramatic. The Chinese Government remains a dictatorship that is staunchly undemocratic, but is more responsive to its people than in the past. The Beijing leadership has learnt the lessons of Tangshan. The state media did not bury the story of the Sichuan earthquake, it broke it. And Mr Wen has inverted the old image of Mao. Where the Great Helmsman posed for painted pictures surrounded by adoring crowds of citizens basking in the glory of falsified harvests and totally fabricated production figures, the modern Prime Minister has stood in the midst of his people as they struggled with natural disaster and human loss. That would never have happened during the dark days of a Cultural Revolution that almost destroyed China.

There is the chance that recent events will strengthen the hand of Mr Wen. If his long-term standing has been advanced by his readiness to dirty his own hands during this tragedy, then that would be a positive development in China and for China and the outside world and for responsible government in the Middle Kingdom.