The National People's Congress, China's top legislature, picked Wen Jiabao to succeed Zhu Rongji as the new premier of the State Council, or the "chief executive" of the Chinese cabinet, in Beijing Sunday.

A vice-premier in Premier Zhu's cabinet for five consecutive years since March 1998, Wen was assigned to take charge of the work related to agriculture, rural areas, development planning and finance. For his superb performance in office, he was widely cited as a "pragmatic, prudent and all-competent leader".

Wen became an alternate member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee at the age of 45. Five years later he was elected an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and also a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee. It took just another five years for him to become a full member of the Political Bureau.

When he just turned 60, Wen entered the Party's top decision- making body, the nine-person Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, at the 16th Party Congress held in Beijing four months ago.

As the CPC has, since 1980s, begun the process of placing more younger and promising officials in its leading positions, Wen, once a geological engineer, was promoted after having undergone strict selection and examination.

Born in September 1942 in Tianjin, a coastal city in north China, Wen graduated from the Beijing Institute of Geology with a master's degree after eight straight years of study. He then went to the remote Gansu province in northwest China, and worked in the Provincial Geological Bureau for 15 years. Proceeding from a mere technician and deputy office division chief, he moved all the way to deputy director of the bureau.

In 1982, Wen was transferred to Beijing, where he worked in the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources as head of the Policy and Regulations Research Section and then vice-minister.

In 1985, Wen was appointed deputy director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee. In the following year, he was promoted to be director of the General Office, where he stayed for another eight years. Since 1992, he had served as secretary of the Financial and Economic Leading Group of the CPC Central Committee for as long as 10 years.

At a very familiar glimpse of Wen, people often see him clad in a casual jacket and sneakers, chatting amiably and cordially with local folks and commoners in villages or disaster-afflicted areas.

As China has a huge rural population of some 900 million, the work related to agriculture and rural areas has always been very complicated with a range of challenges. As a vice-premier, Wen has successfully promoted agricultural development and rural economic restructuring, as well as the experiments with the fee-to-tax reform in the rural areas.

He also played a vital role in mapping out a series of policy documents concerning rural reforms and development, which include the Outlined Programs for Poverty Alleviation and Development in China's Rural Areas and the Outlined Programs for the Development of Agricultural Science and Technology, both of great importance to the development of Chinese agriculture in the new century.

As part of its effort to ease the farmers' economic burden, the Chinese government launched the rural fee-to-tax reform on an experimental basis in year 2000, and Wen has made painstaking efforts to promote this reform in the past two years. In order to constantly improve this reform program, Wen paid many visits to east China's Anhui province, which was selected to be one of the first experimental bases, and were often seen sitting side by side with the local farmers for heart-to-heart discussions regarding this reform. By 2002, 20 provinces in China had begun experimenting with this reform, bringing substantial benefits to hundreds of millions of farmers.

At the on-going First Session of the 10th NPC, Wen also conferred with legislators from central China's Hubei province on the fee-to-tax reform. Many of China's ancient imperial dynasties had also tried to introduce similar reforms, said Wen, but owing to the restrictions of the social and political environment at their times, their reforms had all ended in failure.

"After some initial success, the reforms centuries ago unexceptionally went to their opposite end and the farmers' economic burden became even heavier than before," explained Wen. " This was what people called 'the law of Huang Zongxi', named after a prestigious thinker and philosopher living more than 300 years ago."

"However, we the Communists will definitely break the yoke of this law as we always devote ourselves to seeking benefits for the masses of people whole-heartedly," said Wen in an affirming voice, drawing enthusiastic applause from all lawmakers present.

Wen is famed for his in-depth, down-to-earth style of work. After holding leading positions in central authorities, he has trekked to almost every part of the country, leaving his footprints behind in more than 1,800 of China's total 2,000-strong counties. Apart from frequently going to villages and even to the cropfields to acquaint himself with the actual situation of agriculture, rural development and the farmers' life, it has also almost become an annual routine for him to go to areas hit by floods, droughts and other natural disasters, to direct rescue and relief missions and comfort disaster-affected people.

During this year's Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year which is a traditional occasion for family reunions, Wen went to Fuxin Coalmine in northeastern Liaoning province to send season 's greetings to the miners on behalf of the central leadership. The state-owned mine is currently in its difficult stage of restructuring process.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, which fell on January 31, Wen went down to the bottom of a working shaft 720 meters under the ground, chatted with miners and sat together with them on coal- shipping tracks, eating Chinese dumplings as New Year celebrations.

Sources close to him say that the sober-minded Wen is a very thoughtful and considerate person, but he is also agile and resolute while making decisions. In 1998, when many regions along the Yangtze River, China's longest, were menaced by a monstrous deluge unseen for a hundred years, Wen was entrusted by central authorities to stay in the forefront and direct all flood-fighting efforts.

The situation went extremely grave as the sixth flood crest of the Yangtze arrived. After inspecting endangered sections of the embankment, hearing reports from various sectors and soliciting opinions of meteorological and water conservancy experts in detail, Wen had made quick decisions and appropriate, meticulous arrangements which saved the people's lives and their property and led to the eventual victory against the floods.

Following the outbreak of the Asian Financial Crisis, Wen also did a lot of effective work in carrying out in-depth financial reforms, regulating financial order as well as preventing and minimizing financial risks. These efforts contributed tremendously to China's success in coping with the Asian Financial Crisis and exercising a pro-active fiscal policy to support the national economic growth.

At a series of recent meetings which aimed to map out the course for China's social and economic development in the future, Wen also had made noticeable performances: while presiding over the Central Economic Work Conference, he urged the nation to maintain a steady economic growth, speed up economic restructuring, further push forward reform and opening-up and improve the socialist market economic system; at the Central Conference on Work in Rural Areas, he made arrangements for the work related to agricultural and rural development, calling for accelerated efforts to build up well-off rural areas and stressing a well-planned and balanced economic and social development for both the cities and the countryside.

He is also in charge of a new round of institutional reform of the government organs, and has set forth the principle of "cutting personnel, raising efficiency and unifying thinking". He prompted governments at all levels to transform their functions, introduce a democratic and scientific decision-making mechanism, always keep to administration by law and subject themselves to the supervision by the people.

A very knowledgeable person, Wen has a solid command of political and economic theories and profound attainments in natural sciences. While serving in the CPC Central Committee, he was the main drafter of some key-note documents of the Party, such as the Decisions on Certain Issues Regarding the Establishment of a Socialist Market Economic System and the proposals on formulating the country's 9th and 10th Five-Year Plans.

In diplomatic and foreign exchange activities, Wen has also left people a deep impression with his steady and prudent manner and being well-versed in world affairs.

Almost everyone who knows or ever met him would come to the same appraisal: he really cherishes deep affections for the people.

Wen and his wife have a son and a daughter.

(xinhua)