The public face of the world’s emerging superpower gazed at the hill above him, its forests reduced to gashes of earth and rock by landslides dislodged in the massive earthquake.

Ashen-faced, he appeared genuinely awestruck by the power of nature and the extent of the tragedy surrounding him as he stood in the town nearest to the epicentre.

“Once, this was a very beautiful valley. This is a place where pandas live,” said Wen Jiabao, China’s Prime Minister. The Yingxiu Middle School was a tumbled heap in the background, its classrooms tilted at crazy angles, crumpled one on top of the other. Hidden from sight on the hill to which Mr Wen pointed are the common graves where some of the 8,600 who died in this county of 13,000 have been buried.

It was his second visit to this scene of devastation, but the first for his guest, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon. Mr Wen had clearly decided to dispense with the stilted protocol under which China’s Communist rulers have long suffocated the visits of foreign dignitaries.

In an unprecedented departure for this tightly screened leadership, he invited a small group of foreign journalists – including just a single newspaper correspondent, from The Times – to join him. The group was flown in by military helicopter, an openness unheard of in China. The air force navigator on the flight was so surprised that he asked all 13 foreigners on board for their autographs.

Within minutes of touching down in this narrow valley, the Prime Minister wanted to hold an impromptu press conference. He usually meets the foreign media only once a year, after the annual session of the rubber-stamp parliament, a stage-managed event with no surprises in the script. Since China’s most destructive earthquake of modern times struck this mountainous region on May 12, Mr Wen has been full of surprises.

He was eager to speak to overseas reporters, whom the party usually treats with deep suspicion. “Let a foreign journalist ask the question,” he said to the Chinese who have daily access. He even kept Mr Ban waiting for several minutes so that he could finish his answers.

Those answers, too, were unusually candid in a country that has a long tradition of diluting bad news lest it reflect ill on the party. Instead, he revealed that the death toll, now 62,000, was likely to go as high as 80,000 or more. China, he said, now faced three main challenges – to prevent epidemics, to provide shelter for five million homeless and to tackle 35 “quake lakes” formed by landslides blocking rivers. “We must not allow this major tragedy to be followed by another major disaster,” he said.

Mr Wen’s embrace of a style of leadership more commonly associated with politicians in democratic countries, worried about their election prospects, is unlikely to be the action of an individual. Chinese leaders do not make such radical shifts from usual practice without a great deal of thought and a meeting of at least some members of the nine-man Politburo Standing Committee that rules China.

The question now will be whether the Prime Minister’s man-of-the-people image will translate into real policies for change. The leader insisted that this was no fleeting policy.

He took the opportunity of Mr Ban’s visit to voice China’s gratitude to the international community for its sympathy and help. “This is not only a tragedy for China but for all mankind.” And he said China would not waver from its policy of transparency. “We will hold permanently to our policy of opening up.” This may be a sign that, with the Beijing Olympics only 73 days away, China wants to cool the nationalist, antiWestern sentiment that has erupted since international criticism of Beijing’s handling of the riots in Tibet in March.

His words may appear to be calculated – in the manner of any politician; already, within the last week, the propaganda department has issued edicts to rein in unregulated reporting in the national media.

But Mr Wen certainly looks as if he is speaking from the heart. He wore the crumpled navy blue zip-up jacket that he donned when he first flew down to the earthquake-devastated area just two hours after the tremor. His expression was solemn, his lips pursed and a frown creased his face. It is a display of concern that has won him nationwide support and inspired and comforted survivors.

Anyone in this area, even those who have lost children or still search for the rotting bodies of loved ones, has a variation on the words: “Uncle Wen has given us such hope.”

As his meeting with Mr Ban drew to a close, Mr Wen paused and gestured to his entourage. He had something more to say and his voice trembled with emotion. “Where we stand now is the epicentre of the great Wenchuan earthquake and in this county 13,000 have lost their lives. But you can see our fellow countrymen are already getting back on their feet. Let the world’s people remember the devastating earthquake, remember the lost lives and remember the brave fight of the people in the quake-hit regions and nationwide against the disaster.”

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