Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told a packed audience at Harvard Business School
yesterday that democracy is China's ultimate goal and that the country's recent
economic success was a product of reform and "respect for the freedom of the
Chinese people to pursue happiness."

"There is no question that to develop a democracy is the objective of our
endeavor," he said in response to a query from the audience. But the Communist
Party official added that China would build a "socialist democracy," and that
doing so would require a better education system and would take many years.

In the Boston area on the final stop of his three-city US tour, Wen also
visited a Middleton dairy farm and a Massport shipping terminal, and had lunch
with business and political leaders at the Seaport Hotel in Boston.

At Harvard, the third-highest official of the world's most populous country
did not break new ground in describing his hopes for gradual progress toward
full democracy, according to China scholars. But his style, his willingness to
engage the audience, and his use of common American themes raised hopes for
China's new group of leaders.

"He said nothing that was surprising. It was more the manner," said Roderick
MacFarquhar, a political science professor at Harvard. "I think he was well
advised on how to address an American audience, especially an American academic
audience. . . . I hope it bodes well for better conduct on domestic affairs in
China."

Wen peppered his talk with quotes from President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Ralph Waldo Emerson and examples of how ancient China had inspired Western
thinkers. He even took questions from raised hands in the audience rather than
written questions.

"That told me that he is a confident leader," said Julian Chang, executive
director of Asia Programs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "I think it
makes me personally encouraged about the new generation of leadership. This
shows that they are very cosmopolitan and adept, that they can tailor their
message and be aware of world opinion, and how the message plays."

Wen, who spoke in Chinese and had his remarks translated, joked that he was
wary of speaking at Harvard because he knew the questions there would be
difficult. He spoke about how he had taken inspiration from students this year
during the outbreak of the SARS epidemic and how China planned massive economic
growth that would make it a "medium-developed country" by 2049.

He also said he and President Bush had agreed in their meeting Tuesday on
ways to handle the $140 billion US trade deficit with China, a sore point for US
businessmen and US-China relations. Wen said he hoped to increase the flow of US
goods to China - including cotton, wheat, and soybeans - and proposed setting up
a high-level team to resolve the trade imbalance.

Noticeably absent from his speech, however, was the tension with Taiwan,
where President Chen Shui-bian has announced a referendum asking its citizens if
they want China to renounce the use of force and remove missiles it has pointed
toward Taiwan.

The referendum dispute handed a political victory to Wen during his American
visit: Bush said publicly for the first time that the United States opposes any
steps by Taiwan to change the status quo and move toward independence. The
United States has pledged to protect Taiwan from China in a confrontation, but
also needs China to help manage the crisis with a belligerent North Korea. Bush
has warned Chen against the referendum, but the Taiwanese leader, who is running
for reelection, said yesterday the vote would go forward.

During yesterday's speech, Wen talked with pride of China's 5,000-year-old
civilization and an economy that he said had grown 9 percent annually in recent
years. But he also acknowledged that Communist China had "made a few detours and
missed some opportunities" and that the country suffers from vast inequalities
between urban and rural people.

"China's development is blessed with a rare period of strategic opportunities
and if we don't grasp it, it will slip away," he said. "We can rely on no one
except ourselves to resolve the problems facing our 1.3 billion people."

Wen, a 61-year-old geologist by training whose adroit management skills
helped him climb to the top of the Communist Party hierarchy, was given a
standing ovation before he spoke. The largely Chinese audience waved flags and
laughed loudly at his jokes and stories, which were translated to
English-speakers through headsets.

Wen said China was working hard to improve its record on human rights, and
declared, "I'm not suggesting that China's human rights situation in impeccable."

That remark might have been a reference to a cloud over Wen's visit to
Harvard: the arrest and detention of Yang Jianli, a Brookline resident and
Kennedy School alumnus who was arrested in 2002 after traveling to China on
someone else's passport to observe the labor unrest. More than 100 Harvard
faculty members signed a letter asking for his release. His wife, Christina Fu,
a Harvard employee, said she did not attend the speech yesterday because she did
not win a ticket in the lottery used to determine who could attend. Security
regulations prohibited lottery-winners from giving away their tickets, according
to Fu and a professor with Harvard's Asia Center.

Outside, about 60 protesters from the Taiwanese and Tibetan communities
peppered the road with signs and banners, including "China out of Tibet" and
"Bring Dictator Jiang to Justice." A dozen practitioners of Falun Gong, an
outlawed spiritual movement, wore bright yellow shirts, but inside the 800-seat
auditorium, none could be seen.

Meghan Howard, a Harvard senior and president of Students for a Free Tibet,
managed to sneak in a Tibetan flag and sit near the front. When Wen talked
about how much he loved his people, she stood and unfurled it, yelling: "We will
never stop fighting. Free Tibet!"

As she was escorted out, Wen didn't miss a beat.

"Please allow me to continue my speech," he said. "Ladies and gentlemen, I
will not be disrupted because I am deeply convinced that the 300 million
Americans do have friendly feelings towards the Chinese people and I'm deeply
convinced that the US-Chinese relations will not only serve the interests of
these two countries, but the stability of the whole world."