China Practices Dumpling Politics

It was a visual made for television, and for the Chinese president's own image, too: Hu Jintao surrounded by villagers Thursday, stuffing dumpling skins with seasoned pork for the Lunar New Year.

As China's Communist leadership pushes its agenda of making the people feel they're cared for, small pastiches that make them appear more human are leading the propaganda push.

Thursday's splashy New Year programming showed Hu, dressed in a simple black windbreaker, wrapping and boiling meat-filled "jiaozi" with villagers near Beijing.

"The Communist Party is a party for all the people, and our government is the people's government," Hu declared.

As the top man in China placed a lump of meat into a flour wrapper, he emphasized the main message of his year-old administration - that the government's primary responsibility is the people's welfare, especially in poor areas.

"That, after all, is socialism," Hu said, as a man in a cloth cap nodded. A woman nearby churned out more flour wrappers with a wooden rolling pin.

The scene from Hebei province fitted neatly with Hu's increasing efforts to portray himself as a president with a common touch, whether chatting with Mongolian herders in their tents or donning a hard hat to tour a factory.

And as China enters the Year of the Monkey expecting prosperity in the wake of 9.1 percent economic growth last year, the government is taking pains to reassure its people the country remains a stable, secure place even as the rich-poor gap widens and crime rises.

While the previous leadership, under Jiang Zemin, was more focused on rapid growth at all costs, China's new leaders have repeatedly stressed they also want to build a "well-off society" by lifting more people out of poverty and fighting for workers' rights.

The message is aimed at the tens of millions of laid-off workers, particularly in China's industrial northeast, who have been protesting for unpaid wages and benefits - and questioning how a communist system they thought would care for them for a lifetime was letting them down.

Leaders are also trying to battle corruption, which many in China associate with fleshy officials splurging during the holidays on multi-course banquets paid for with public money.

Enter the dumpling - a humble homemade food that anyone in China can identify with.

Premier Wen Jiabao famously spent last New Year sharing dumplings with miners in a coal shaft 2,300 feet underground.

This year, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wen braved "freezing winter cold" to chat with farmers in central Henan province on New Year's Eve, asking them about grain prices and telling officials the "government should never forget people in difficulties."

And Wen shared dumplings too; China Central Television showed him holding a huge platter aloft.

But, predictably, it was Hu's dumpling sampling that got the most attention.

Since Chinese take food very seriously, Hu's dumpling performance was sure to draw comment on his culinary skills - especially with the TV close-up of his hands pinching dough and snagging tasty meat filling with chopsticks.

In another scene, Hu wore a fur hat with earflaps as he toured a village, inspecting fields and cattle pens and asking peasants: "How are you preparing for New Year?"

They told him they had made steamed bread and rice - and, of course, dumplings.

"Good!" he said, shaking his hands together in traditional greeting. "Tonight you're going to eat meat, eat dumplings ... and then watch television."

By Stephanie Hoo