Smash hit

One trigger for the approach was a scandal involving the sale of tainted baby formula that was hidden to prevent bad news from tarnishing China’s image during the Beijing Olympics. When the cover-up was discovered and reported there was widespread anger against the Government.

At least four babies – and possibly many more – died from kidney failure after being fed milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. The news emerged only in September after a Chinese journalist posted a report online. Other newspapers that had been aware of the problem then followed suit, forcing the Government to come out into the open. Since then, several items of bad news have been reported with unusual speed.

A riot late on Monday by villagers angered by the confiscation of their homes and land in a remote northwestern town was reported by state media within hours. The public have also been given blow-by-blow accounts of taxi strikes in several cities, even though industrial action has long been a taboo subject in case it triggers wider unrest.

Despite Mr Li’s exhortation, many Chinese officials are set in their ways.

It was only after members of the public began sending text messages about an epidemic of maggots in mandarin oranges from the southwestern Sichuan province late last month that the authorities acknowledged they had a problem.

State media said that officials tried to cover up the infestation for about a month – even though farmers notified local authorities just two days after tens of thousands of trees were found to be affected.

The party’s tight control was high-lighted in the past few days by a drive to remove the editorial board of China’s most daring magazine.

An article in the September issue of Annals of the Yellow Emperor praised the Communist Party leader sacked after the 1989 Tiananmen Square student demonstrations. The report angered his successor and Mr Li has followed up the leader’s request to punish the editors and muzzle the publication.

Filtering the news

— It took China 18 years before it broke its silence to reveal that 694 people – including 597 children – had died in a Chinese New Year’s Day inferno in a crowded cinema in 1977. There was no explanation for the delay in the news

— In 1975, 62 dams in central Henan province crumbled over the course of three days or were intentionally destroyed amid record rainfall, killing at least 175,000 people in the worst such recorded disaster in history. Government figures were declassified only in 2005

— The extent of the 2003 outbreak of Sars, right, was originally underreported. The Chinese Government was eventually forced to release accurate figures only after a Chinese doctor blew the whistle

— Chinese officials paid high sums in compensation to families of workers who died during the building of the Bird’s Nest Stadium to ensure their silence. China admitted the deaths of two workers only after a report by The Sunday Times in January of this year

— The Government was slow to respond to contamination of milk that led to the deaths of at least four infants and the hospitalisation of 12,892. It admitted partial guilt in October and arrested 36 manufacturers

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