Russell Moses, writing for the Wall Street Journal, concluded that Wen had gone ‘off-message.’ Upholding people’s right to criticise and monitor the government (which he heads), Wen stated that the government needed to start paying greater attention to those made most vulnerable by economic success.  As Moses argued, ‘Wen did not bother to use code-words such as “democracy with Chinese characteristics” or “accountability”… [as he] lashed out at what he cast as the over-centralized and unrestrained system of power in China.’

The Premier’s statements departed only marginally from things which he and other leaders have said before, but the occasion and the current sombre political atmosphere — with China already preparing for the 2012 handover of the top political positions to a new administration in the 18^th National Party Congress — provided  the speech with an instant echo chamber. Sharp commentary from policy experts and critical intellectuals flooded the blogs and editorial columns, hailing Wen’s modest proposals as profound and expanding their zone of application to the limit. The official media, meanwhile, expressed serious reservations about the Premier’s proposals. Possibly, these reservations actually represent objections from elements in the leadership responsible for propaganda and ideological matters.

For their part, political commentators characterised Wen’s ‘outburst’ as demonstrating a breakdown in the solidarity of the CCP’s leading circles. Wen, they felt, was playing a lone hand, and, drawing a line between himself and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao. Veteran Beijing watcher Willy Lam went further, finding evidence of a pressure play by Wen to secure the succession to his role as Premier by Li Keqiang, now First Vice-Premier.

Hu himself appeared in Shenzhen on 6 September, some two weeks later, to give a speech of his own in celebration of the 30 years of Shenzhen’s special status.

What to make of Hu’s speech? The official media proclaimed it was a case of unanimity.

Hu’s speech was displayed with far greater prominence than Wen’s in the central media, but compared to Wen’s was quite bland, calling for ‘further bold innovation and exploration’ in the Shenzhen model, rather than expanded citizen rights to support political reform. It is easy to interpret the speech as a product of the apparatus around Hu. The speech could be seen as evidence of the CCP’s emphasising conservatism as negotiations over the succession intensify. Seen in this light, the speech was intended to smother any appearance of a split in the party. But at the same time, rumours of a different, unpublished, text of Hu’s 6 September speech, closer in tone to Wen’s, continue to circulate. So there is little certainty.

What line is the CCP taking?  If Hu’s heavily publicised speech does not represent it, then why was the speech published?  Is the furore in fact evidence of a deeper split in the party, between Hu and Wen on the one hand, and conservative forces on the other?

The evidence to hand so far is quite ambiguous. Despite the excited commentary, Wen’s speech in Shenzhen was notable more for the atmospherics against which it appeared than for any radically new content. Subsequently, there was an apparent attempt to head off rumours of a split between him and Hu. Yet belief in a split appears to have a life of its own. As usual, the opacity and secrecy of the system does it few favours. Observers of China are reduced to reading the tea leaves, and the task of pressing forward in Asia via a combination of hard and soft power is made more complicated.

David Kelly is a Professor of China Studies at the China Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney.