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When Premier Wen Jiabao swiftly resolved one family’s problem during a recent Three Gorges inspection tour, the story was splashed across an official press eager to portray him as a man of the people, and the Beijing leadership as showing a new, caring face.

Premier Wen travelled to Wanzhou, Yunyang, Fengjie and Zigui on Oct. 24-26 and inspected new residential areas built for people displaced by the Three Gorges dam. “He cordially chatted with the migrants from the reservoir area and inquired about their living and production conditions in great detail,” Xinhua news agency reported on Oct. 27.

Mr. Wen also urged all party committees and government officials to “seriously carry out the policies related to Three Gorges migrants,” Xinhua said.

On the drive from Wanzhou to Yunyang, Mr. Wen asked to stop in a small, out-of-the-way village. “Let’s get out and see the folks here,” Xinhua quoted him as saying.

People gathered from all around when the Premier and his entourage suddenly appeared at a farmer’s home. Mr. Wen urged the villagers to tell him about the difficulties they faced, and asked if they needed help with any specific problems.

One woman, Xiong Deming, said a contractor owed her husband more than 2,000 yuan for his work on construction of the new Yunyang county seat. They had been waiting more than a year for the money, and had trouble paying their children’s school fees as a result.

The villagers cheered when the Premier promised to look into the matter. He also publicly admonished the officials accompanying him, saying that while such cases might seem trivial to them, they could be extremely important to the people involved.

“How can you know local people’s problems if you sit in the office all day and don’t get out to chat with them?” he said.

Mr. Wen was true to his word, and Ms. Xiong’s husband received his unpaid wages of 2,240 yuan that very night, Xinhua reported.

If the Premier had been able to fit in another impromptu visit to a nearby town, he could have been assured of a lively chat with other Three Gorges migrants who have been trying for years to share their problems with Beijing authorities.

Residents of Gaoyang, about 20 kilometres from the new county seat of Yunyang, have submitted numerous petitions to Beijing over the years. They have pleaded for help in combating local officials’ theft of compensation funds and flouting of the resettlement regulations issued by the central government.

Their repeated appeals have fallen on deaf ears in the capital, while local officials have jailed villagers who travelled to Beijing to bring migrants’ grievances to the attention of top leaders.

In one petition recently obtained by Three Gorges Probe, the Gaoyang migrants appealed to the new leaders in Beijing soon after they took office in March. Mr. Wen became Premier at that time.

“All we want is for the policies of the central government to be enforced, so that we can be resettled properly and start rebuilding our lives,” the migrants wrote, after describing broken promises in the resettlement operation and mistreatment by local officials.

“We sincerely hope that you will address our situation and send a work team here to conduct a thorough investigation. You will discover that everything we have reported is absolutely true. We look forward to seeing you soon.”