Style changes take center stage at two sessions

BEIJING - Reciting an adapted poem by an unknown author from late leader Mao Zedong's works, Yao Tandong made fun of the heavy smog that has plagued Beijing over the past months.

But Yao's audience was in no way a group of nobodies. Among them was one of the country's top leaders, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Xi was attending a group discussion of political advisers from the sectors of science and technology at the annual political session, the country's top political arena where issues of importance are deliberated and decisions made by lawmakers and discussed by advisers from across the nation.

Yao, a researcher on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is particularly concerned about the deteriorating air conditions in Beijing as well as in other parts of the country.

"It is a tremendous task to build a beautiful China and protect its environment," Yao said. "To address air pollution needs concerted efforts in many aspects such as social management, scientific research and engineering. It is a systemic project."

Xi, after a brief laugh at the ironic poem, turned solemn upon Yao's remarks about the air.

Media coverage of Yao's unorthodoxy went viral online, with some Internet users expressing their surprise at the boldness of the scientist.

"It is the responsibility of a political adviser to tell the truth, to expose the problems, and to try to solve them," Yao said.

Yao is not the only one who become more outspoken and critical at this year's political sessions, at which there are much fewer yawns but more wrangling.

At a gathering convened to extend Lunar New Year's greetings to people from non-Communist parties last month, Xi urged the Communist Party of China to be more tolerant of criticism and receptive to different views.

"The Party should be able to put up with sharp criticism, correct mistakes if it has committed them and avoid them if it has not," he said.

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