In a gesture of openness, Beijing has encouraged the country's 1.3 billion citizens to pose questions to Premier Wen Jiabao before his annual press conference on the last day of the National People's Congress today. Questions can be sent to an online forum or via mobile phone text message. It is meant to be convenient, spontaneous and democratic. Millions of messages have already reached Premier Wen, state television announced, but not one was on the crackdown on riots in Tibet that has been the front-page story around the world for the past four days. A reporter covering the NPC posted an online inquiry on Xinhua's website - one of a few official sponsors of the online project - but it never appeared on the website. The question was not provocative. It asked Premier Wen what he thought was the most effective way to bring the situation under control.