VICTORIA, CANADA - I've always wished Chinese leaders would give candid interviews to foreign journalists (well, I'd like them to give such interviews to Chinese journalists, too, but I'm not holding my breath).  Jiang Zemin was interviewed a few times by foreign journalists during his tenure as President, but Hu Jintao's administration has granted far less access.

So it was nice to see Wen Jiabao sit down with Fareed Zakaria of CNN, where he discussed everything from the US economic meltdown to human rights to the Dalai Lama.  The interview is worth watching (the transcript is available here).

Zakaria asked good questions, although not pointed ones, of Premier Wen.  For example, Zakaria brought up the issue of Internet censorship and refused a more pointed follow-up when Wen dodged the question:

Zakaria: When I go to China and I'm in a hotel and I type in the words Tiananmen Square in my computer, I get a firewall, what some people call the Great Firewall of China. Can you be an advanced society if you don't have freedom of information to find out information on the Internet?

Wen Jiabao: China now has over 200 million Internet users, and the freedom of Internet in China is recognized by many, even from the west. Nonetheless, to uphold state security, China, like many countries in the world, has also imposed some proper restrictions. That is for the safety, that is for the overall safety of the country and for the freedom of the majority of the people.

I can also tell you on the Internet in China, you can have access to a lot of postings that are quite critical about the government.

It is exactly through reading these critical opinions on the Internet that we try to locate problems and further improve our work.

I don't think a system or a government should fear critical opinions or views. Only by heeding those critical views would it be possible for us to further improve our work and make further progress.

I frequently browse the Internet to learn about a situation.

Zakaria dropped the subject after this non-answer.

The Chinese government has, however, come along way in admitting its own human rights abuses if we compare Jiang Zemin's words in 1997 to Wen's interview.  Wen said, "We don't think that we are impeccable in terms of human rights. It is true that in some places and in some areas, we do have problems of this kind or that kind."  Jiang Zemin was much more firm:  "I believe that China does not feel that it has done anything wrong in the field of human rights."  Nice to see there is some progress, even if it can be painfully slow.