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SHANGHAI — Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is known for his populist approach and near constant presence in Chinese headlines. He often races to the scene of natural disasters to comfort survivors. On state-run television, he can be seen eating with the poor in rural villages. Though often stage-managed by Chinese news media, his common touch has earned him the nickname “Grandpa Wen.” 

But this week, the 68-year-old prime minister made what many analysts consider a bolder statement: he appeared at the nation’s top petition bureau in Beijing, where people go to file grievances, and encouraged citizens to criticize the government and press their cases for justice. 

“We are the people’s government, and our power is vested upon us by the people,” the prime minister said during the visit, according to state-run news media. “We should use the power in our hands to serve the interest of the people, helping them to tackle difficulties in a responsible way.” 

The crucial factor was the setting. The national petition bureau is known as a lightning rod for anger about official corruption, illegal land seizures, labor disputes and complaints of all sort, the kind of problems that reveal China’s continuing weakness on the rule of law. In a nation that fiercely snuffs out any sign of dissent or challenges to the ruling Communist Party, the government sometimes deems it appropriate to detain petitioners here or to forcibly send them back home. 

But on Wednesday, the state-run news media showed images of the prime minister meeting two days earlier with a small group of petitioners at the bureau, officially known as the State Bureau for Letters and Calls. The state-controlled media reports said he encouraged government workers to handle the petitioner cases properly. 

Mr. Wen also instructed officials to make it easier for citizens to criticize and monitor the government. The reports said it was the first time a prime minister had appeared at the bureau to meet petitioners since the founding of the Communist state in 1949. 

In recent months, Mr. Wen has appeared to press for political reform, though analysts are uncertain about whether he is pushing on his own or with the support of a broader segment of the nation’s leadership. 

The media gave prominent display to articles about the visit on Wednesday, and blogs and Internet forums in China were buzzing with chatter about the visit. 

More than 6,000 postings about the visit appeared on the popular Web site Netease.com, many of them praising the prime minister. 

But there was also some criticism. On Sina.com’s popular Chinese microblog, someone named Langzi wrote, “Shouldn’t Wen be more concerned about how laws and rules are enforced?” Another blogger added, “Chinese people are still dreaming that a lord will come and implement justice.” 

Lu Yuegang, a journalist who writes about the plight of petitioners, called Mr. Wen’s visit a positive move but said the petition system was flawed and that the government should abolish it and work on implementing the rule of law with judicial independence. 

“The petition system has almost zero effect,” he said in an interview. “Most petitions received by the state bureau are sent back to the local governments, the place where the cases originate. The system is not a problem-solving system but a receiving-and-forwarding system. And it just recycles the cases. This is the core problem.” 

And Phelim Kine, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said that Mr. Wen had become adept at showing his concern for the poor but that the nation’s legal system was still ineffective, the very reason so many petitioners travel to Beijing. 

“Premier Wen consistently talks the talk on the crucial issues facing China,” Mr. Kine said in a telephone interview. “But can the government really make the changes necessary to fix a broken system? 

“The court system doesn’t work, and these people can’t get legal redress.”

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Spanish cycling officials have chosen to be lenient on Alberto Contador in punishing him for testing positive for a banned drug at last year’s Tour de France, proposing that he be barred for one year instead of the usual two-year sanction for a first-time offense. 

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Reuters

Alberto Contador, training in Spain, would be the second Tour de France winner stripped of his title for a failed doping test. 

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Times Topics: Alberto Contador | Doping

Officials from the Spanish Cycling Federation notified Contador of the possible ban on Wednesday, according to a statement by his spokesman, Jacinto Vidarte. The cycling officials declined to comment on their proposal — which would include the loss of Contador’s Tour title — until their decision was final. That decision is expected the second week of February. 

According to Spanish cycling federation rules, Contador, a three-time Tour winner, has 10 days to challenge the proposal and offer new evidence before the ruling is final. He has maintained his innocence. 

The International Cycling Union provisionally suspended Contador last year. 

Contador’s penalty is yet another blow for cycling. If barred from competition, Contador will become the second Tour winner to be stripped of the title for doping, and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg would move to first place from second. In 2006, the American Floyd Landis lost the Tour title and was barred for two years after testing positive for synthetic testosterone. 

Contador will discuss his case Friday at a news conference in Mallorca, where his Saxo Bank team has been training, his spokesman said. From that training camp, he told Spanish radio this week that he was trying to focus on his cycling, not his case. 

“Right now the most important thing is to remove yourself a bit from everything that is going on around you and focus on working, which is what can bear fruit in the future,” Contador said. 

Six months have passed since Contador tested positive on the Tour’s final rest day. Small traces of clenbuterol, a banned weight-loss and muscle-building drug, were found in his urine. 

He blamed that positive test on contaminated beef from Spain. He and his lawyers, who did not respond to a request for a comment Wednesday, have said the tiny amount of clenbuterol in his system could not have helped his performance. 

World Anti-Doping Agency officials could not find evidence of clenbuterol contamination in meat from the butcher from which Contador’s steak had been purchased, according to a person who was briefed on the case. Still, the Spanish cycling officials appear to have agreed with at least some of that alibi, experts in doping cases said. 

“If his defense was strictly that it must have been contaminated meat, then I would think they must have accepted that reasoning in order to reduce the penalty,” Howard Jacobs, a lawyer who specializes in defending athletes in doping cases, said. “But if they accepted that it was contaminated meat, I don’t see why they gave him a penalty at all. It’s difficult to say how they came to their decision. Maybe there was some element of the defense that wasn’t made public.” 

According to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s code, an athlete can receive no penalty if he proves how the banned substance ended up in his system and if he is proven not to be at fault for ingesting the contaminated substance. Food contamination cases often fit into this category because there is usually no way an athlete could have known the drug was in his food. 

But in cases in which the athlete is deemed to have no significant fault — including in contaminated supplement cases — the sanction could be reduced but not entirely erased, under WADA’s code. 

Jacobs said that another way Contador’s ban could have been reduced would be if he gave substantial assistance to antidoping or criminal authorities in pointing out others’ antidoping rules violations or violations of the law. 

“I haven’t heard that Alberto Contador cooperated with any antidoping investigations, so I’m not sure if that would be the case for the reduction,” Jacobs said. 

No matter how the Spanish officials rule, Contador, the International Cycling Union and the World Anti-Doping Agency could appeal the ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. That court’s ruling, which could take months or even more than a year, would be final. 

So there remains a chance that Contador could still face a full two-year sanction or be cleared altogether. 

“What we all can have comfort in is WADA’s role to review the evidence and determine if one year was the just and fair sanction,” said Travis Tygart, chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency. “If not, it can appeal it to the Supreme Court of sport and let them decide.”