Fearless reform advocate seen as barometer of political winds

Pan Yue is not afraid of sparking controversy when advocating political reforms.

Since the young Communist Party theoretician with unconventional ideas became deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration last year, he has named and shamed some of the nation's worst polluters.

Last September, Mr Pan took on the Zhuzhou Chemical Group, one of the largest state-owned enterprise in Hunan, for discharging an annual 15 million tonnes of waste water into the Xiang river.

He has also called for widespread participation in protecting the environment and appealed for a thorough re-examination of economic policies, which had put growth above everything else.

Analysts had initially thought Mr Pan's appointment to a bureaucratic post was a waste of talent. However, his career has often been seen as a barometer of the prevailing political winds.

When he was deputy director of the State Council's Economic Restructuring Office, he wrote an article entitled 'Thoughts on the transformation from a revolutionary party to a party in power', which foreshadowed former president Jiang Zemin's Theory of the Three Represents. He also wrote a long essay urging authorities to abandon the Communist Party's traditional hostility towards religion.