Man of the people makes little fuss on first official visit

When Xi Jinping started a two-day inspection tour in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Friday, it was no surprise that the trip attracted huge media attention.

After all, it was the first time that the new general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee had traveled outside Beijing since he assumed the post in November.

While Xi visited the Qianhai experimental zone and a couple of businesses on Friday, he spent time on Saturday laying flowers at a bronze statue of the late leader Deng Xiaoping on Lianhua Hill.

However, rather than who he met or what he said, it was the manner in which the new Party chief arrived that caught the overwhelming attention of the media: no welcoming crowds or banners, no red carpet, no heavy traffic control. The police did block a couple of main roads as Xi's small motorcade passed by, but only briefly.

"The roads in the Qianhai experimental zone were just as normal. A motorcade of eight cars arrived at about 3:30 in the afternoon, but not a single welcome banner was seen and neither were the usual cheering crowds," according to a report on Hong Kong's Phoenix Television.

China's new leader was living up to a promise he'd made three days earlier.

Xi presided over a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, China's top ruling body, on Tuesday when a document was adopted that detailed explicit measures to fight strict formality and bureaucracy. The measures included a reduction in the number of meetings, making policy documents more concise, lessening traffic controls during officials' visits and exercising thrift.

There should be "no welcome banners, no red carpets, no floral arrangements or grand receptions for officials' visits", according to the statement.

It also banned members of the Political Bureau from publishing monographs and signing autographs.

Moreover, members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, are now required to "adhere to the regulations before asking others to do so and not to do anything they wouldn't want others to do", continued the statement.