As rare as the heavy snow through mid- and south-China, all of the nine politburo standing committee members stepped out of their Beijing office and went to different regions deemed most hit by the snow, which was worst in 50 years and also coincides with the busiest travel time in the year. Back in 1989, only the then-president Jiang Zemin and then-premier Zhu Rongji came to the worst flooding area along Yangtze River; back in 2003, when SARS broke out, only two highest officials – Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao went outside Beijing to visit the disaster-ridden region. This time all nine standing politburo members all went out was taken as a sign that this snow disaster might be much worse than what the state media was reporting.
Source: Asia Times, February 5, 2008
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