The People's Technocrat.(Wen Jiabao, China)

On new year's eve, Wen Jiabao, China's prime minister-designate, had a special request. He wished to pay a visit to Chinese coal miners. Hours before the Chinese New Year rang in, the country's new economic czar climbed aboard an underground tram and descended 2,400 feet into the mine shaft to meet the workers below. For two hours Wen sat on the rail track chatting with the miners, sharing a meal and assuring the men that the contribution of China's old-line industries to the country's economic development would not be forgotten. "I have always wanted to spend Spring Festival with mineworkers in a coal pit," said Wen, 60, between dumplings. "Today, my wish has finally come true."

From the echoes coming out of the opening of China's National People's Congress last week, Wen's down-to-earth touch may be just what the party is looking for. The two-week legislative session is expected to approve the next generation of top government officials, including the official transfer of the presidency from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao. Wen, for his part, is expected to replace Zhu Rongji in the No. 3 spot. But the talk in the conference hallways turned less on the allocation of positions--almost all of which were determined well in advance of the heavily scripted event--than on the party's new push to boost the economic prospects of the country's rural and urban poor. Of 10 initiatives unveiled by the State Development Planning Commission, seven are aimed at social-support programs, like creating job opportunities, raising rural incomes and improving living standards in the country's remote corners.

And for good reason: some 30 million people have been laid off from state enterprises in the past five years, and there is rising resentment among the country's 800 million peasants whose stagnant incomes are leaving them farther and farther behind. Whereas the outgoing Chinese leadership will be remembered for their massive investments in China's coastal provinces, the new leadership--sometimes referred to as the Fourth Generation--seems to have their eye on the development of China's hinterland. And, fortunately for --Wen, his past portfolios--which have included agriculture, western development, state-owned enterprise reform and financial restructuring--have given him a close look at the challenges at hand. "He's not like the Shanghai guys, enamored with a high-tech orientation toward development. Wen did his time in the rough areas," says a Western diplomat in Beijing. "He has a visceral understanding of the countryside."

A geologist by training, Wen spent his early career in the hardscrabble inland province of Gansu. It wasn't until a Beijing official came to the western outpost on a work inspection in the early 1980s that Wen received wider notice. Wen's presentation to the visiting dignitaries-- made entirely without notes--left them deeply impressed. (His command of Gansu's topography earned him the nickname the "living map.") So much so that Wen soon found himself lifted into the rough-and- tumble of Beijing politics. By 1986, having proved himself to be a superb administrator, he was tapped to be director of the Central Committee's General Office, a post that opens the doors--and file cabinets--of the top party leadership. "Wen will be the first premier who was once in charge of the Central Committee," says Minxin Pei, a China scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "He controlled the paper flows, so he knows the bureaucracy."