Before introducing key policies, Chinese leaders are supposed to meet with ordinary citizens and hear their opinions, bringing themselves closer to reality. But what leaders hear or see is sometimes nothing more than a show staged by lower-level officials.

Villagers in Yingxiu township, Sichuan Province, in the area hit by the magnitude-8 earthquake of May 12, 2008, told the Global Times in April that local officials told them to stay at home in the name of public security one day before a top leader's visit. Instead people from nearby villages were "dispatched" to the town to "represent" them.

Only later did they discover the visitor was Premier Wen Jiabao. He was at the town to check the process of reconstruction work after the disaster.

Wen has always impressed the public with his closeness to ordinary people, but the villagers whom Wen came to visit didn't even have the chance to approach him. Wen was probably unaware he was visiting the "wrong" people.

"All of the roads in the village were blocked by the police and we were not even allowed to go to see doctors," Zhang Zhibiao, a farmer from Zezi village in Qian'an county, Jilin Province, told Phoenix Weekly in May. He said the roads were unblocked after leaders left.

Zhang made another stunning claim. The town officials and the village's Party secretary borrowed 73 cattle from nearby villages and returned them a month after the research. They were displayed to Jia Qinglin, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

 "I know exactly who borrowed the cattle and who returned them, and I have talked about this for several years, but no one cares about this," Zhang told Phoenix Weekly.

Grass-roots visits critical

Vice President Xi Jinping holds that a county's Party secretary is supposed to visit all villages, and a province secretary to all counties or cities under his jurisdiction.

"I have been to all the cities and counties in Zhejiang Province since I came here over a year ago," Xi told local officials in Jiaxing, Zhejiang during the Spring Festival of 2004, when he was the Party secretary of the province, according to Phoenix Weekly.

Statistics from the Center for China Study at Tsinghua University show that Premier Wen made 76 grass-roots visits from October 2002 to September 2007, followed by 48 from President Hu Jintao. On average, each member made 39 trips, according to the magazine.

Wen then made 84 visits from October 2007 to August 2011, according to the center's data.

Officials at the General Office of the State Council said that top leaders conduct on-the-spot investigations to watch how the introduced policies are implemented, to find out how the industries they are responsible are going on and to deal with emergency events or natural disasters.

According to the report, leaders pick typical areas to investigate. For instance, when investigating rural migrant workers, they would  typically pick Jiangxi or Henan, both of which produce many such migrants.

A typical city or county, with a population between 300,000 to 400,000 and whose situation could be used as a reference for other cities, will then be selected within the province, and finally a town or village is chosen as the final research spot.

Doing research is very important and is a basic skill for officials. "The real situation must be understood before any policy is introduced. Without knowing the truth, it's like shooting an arrow at random," said Zhang Hulin, a professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

Leaders turning up after disasters is a good thing, according to some experts. "Such visits demonstrate concern and the public can feel that the leaders care," said Zhong Dajun, director with Dajun Think Tank, a non-governmental organization based in Beijing, adding that it is also necessary when some problems cannot be dealt with by local officials.

But doing research is not easy, and depends on officials' attitude and ability, said Professor Zhang.

Security barriers

The experiences of villagers in Jilin and Sichuan provinces also happened in Shangcai county, Henan Province, where a similar excuse, "guaranteeing leaders' security," was used and police were present to deliberately "build" an isolation belt, reported pcpnews.cn in June 2008.

The visiting groups included leaders with the State Council and World Health Organization.

Citizens must be stopped from approaching or talking to investigators, and officials who failed to "finish the job" would be dismissed, ordered Yang Songlin, Party secretary of the county. Yang was later punished.

For Professor Zhang, officials like Yang are deeply mistaken. "They forget the people should be the real masters, not officials. They are supposed to serve the public," said Zhang to the Global Times.

However, grass-roots officials or entrepreneurs do have their difficulties. Some enterprises become "celebrity businesses" and function as fixed units for leaders to research.

A staff member at an enterprise, unwilling to be identified, told reporters that "We are frequently bothered by those visiting officials. We once received four teams of leaders within one month, and we were supposed to tell the same situation and answer similar questions every time," reported Zhejiang Daily in February.

"If people don't trust officials or the visiting investigators, they won't tell the truth," said Zhang, adding that the problem lies in the officials. Some of them don't take research seriously and are just playing around.

Zhang said most officials are serious, but they face difficulties when doing research. They must tell whether the scenes they're shown are natural or staged, and judge whether what they hear are true or not.

Leaders fooled

"Even former premier Zhu Rongji could be deceived. Can the results from this kind of research really be used for future economic plans?" wondered Zhang Zhuoyuan, a researcher with Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

According to Zhang, Zhu, who held the position from 1998 to 2003, visited a small vendors' market in Shanxi Province, and he was pleased with the prosperity he saw. But Zhu later was told that the whole affair had been a show, and sent his secretary to investigate, only to find the market had disappeared.

"It is because of bureaucracy and the improper behavior of cheating superior leaders and deceiving subordinates," said Zhong, adding that the truth and real public opinions are becoming harder for top leaders to discover.

"The real situation of citizens cannot be heard by top leaders, because various interest groups are bound together. They choose not to report the difficulties if they cannot solve them," said Yu Hai, a professor at the department of sociology, Fudan University in Shanghai.

Illegal and illicit behavior is sometimes allowed secretly by local governments. "They become common and accepted, though illegal," said Yu. He told the Global Times his experience of doing research in Zhejiang Province.

He Yong, deputy secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, emphasized that officials who took measures against government policies would be more severely punished, reported chinanews.com on Monday.

Zhong Dajun said it is not necessary for top leaders to do research personally too frequently. "Leaders can get materials from their 'eyes and ears,'" he said.

Diversified channels needed

"Besides, opinions and voices from different channels should also be heard," said Zhong, explaining those who are within the system must follow rules, such as chain of command and "figuring out" leaders' ideas, which are typical of officials. "This is not helpful for real public opinions to reach leaders, either."

For Yu Hai, no any single way is absolutely effective. "Everything just happens within the government system, and results after policies practiced sometimes remain unknown," said Yu, adding that improper decisions based on inadequate research are often made, which have brought huge waste. Ultimately, he said, taxpayers pay the cost.

Nowadays, more surveys are done by professors or scholars. "They are all members of the elite," said Yu, adding that ordinary people have wisdom and their suggestions should also be valued.

He proposed more non-government organizations should be set up, and more attention given to NGOs so that they can provide helpful information, which is difficult to discover in the government system.

Such views have already been given central approval. "Random options" should be taken when doing the research, as well as arranged schedules, Vice President Xi Jinping stated at the opening ceremony of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee last fall. The speech was published in the Study Times, sponsored by the school.

Xi strongly proposed that spontaneous visits should be made, so that the overall situation can be understood and the phenomena of "going through the motions" or elaborate shows could be avoided.