“How much do you earn in a month? When are you going to root out corruption? Can I call you ‘elder brother Hu’?”

Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, was all smiles as he fielded these and other questions in an unprecedented 20-minute online chat with the country’s internet audience - the largest in the world. Never in the history of China has its leader been questioned publicly by ordinary citizens in such a way. Not long ago, such impertinence would have been dangerous.

Admittedly, the Communist Party chief did not answer the cheekier queries posted on the website of the People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece. Instead, a moderator read out a select few to Mr Hu and his spoken responses were printed and shown in a video clip on the site’s Strong China Forum.

He promised to read all the questions and answered those about his own internet habits, encouraging China’s 221 million “netizens” to express themselves online.

“Although I am too busy to browse the internet everyday, I try to spend some time on the web,” he said in response to one question. “First, I read domestic and international news on the web. Through the web I also want to know what netizens are thinking about and what their opinions are. Thirdly, I hope to get some suggestions and advice proposed by our netizens to the Government and the Party.”

The chat was intended to polish Mr Hu’s rather stilted image, which has been eclipsed by that of Wen Jiabao, his Premier, after the Sichuan earthquake last month. It also illustrates government determination to harness the internet’s potential to guide and to gauge public opinion, without local officials muddying the waters.

“With the rise in the netizen population, the leaders attach more importance to the internet as a direct communication channel,” said Wang Sixin, a professor at the China Media University in Beijing. “Here they get the most genuine views.”

The Government has regarded the internet with suspicion since China was connected in 1994. It set up a “Great Firewall” to block any content deemed subversive or antisocial. Last week it omitted three of China’s most popular YouTube equivalents - Youku.com, Tudou.com and 56.com - from a list of those granted licences to show video footage.

It also has a strained relationship with its online community, which is prone to outbursts of xenophobia. One internet campaign forced the Government to cancel plans for a Japanese military flight to bring aid after the Sichuan quake. Another prompted it to delay the opening of the Hollywood comedy Kung Fu Panda in Sichuan last week.

China’s leaders now see the online population, which overtook America’s in February, as an important political constituency.

“We pay great attention to suggestions and advice from our netizens,” Mr Hu said in response to another question. “The web is an important channel for us to understand the concerns of the public and assemble the wisdom of the public.”

Critics accuse Beijing of stifling all serious political dissent online and ignoring repeated calls from Western officials for greater internet freedom.

“We say to the Chinese, very clearly so, that their blocking of certain internet content is absolutely unacceptable,” said Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media.

A media freedom activist last week accused China of breaking a promise to ease internet restrictions for the Beijing Olympics. “During this year the internet police became much more efficient in terms of surveillance of internet activities,” Zhang Yu, of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, said. “People are now forced to self-censor their internet activities.”

Even the more daring questions put to Mr Hu - on issues such as democracy and Taiwan - were probably screened in advance.

Nonetheless, it was a landmark in Chinese political terms and, to judge by China’s chat rooms, most netizens were genuinely impressed by their leader’s debut in cyberspace.

“If it can be continued, it will be the most effective shortcut to understanding the hardships of people at the grass roots,” said one writing under the monicker “teatime”, on chinanews.com.

Another calling himself “snowson”, on sohu.com, said: “In ancient times, emperors got to see the real situation by travelling incognito. Nowadays it’s impossible for leaders to understand the real situation this way. They can only rely on the internet.”

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