By Lucy Hornby

BEIJING, March 16 (Reuters) - Metaphors flowed during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's news conference on Friday, as he invoked water to illustrate everything from social equality to the fight against corruption.

Wen, who has been known to tear up during televised meetings with common people, reminded reporters that China's economic boom had still not spilled over to much of the population.

"The speed of a fleet is not determined by the fastest vessel, rather it is determined by the slowest one," he said, in a nod to American philosopher of social justice, John Rawls.

Wen also enlisted a poem by modern poet Ai Qing to illustrate the results of policies by Wen and Chinese President Hu Jintao to raise living standards across the country.

"If you ask me what happiness means, I tell you to ask a meadow in bloom, or a river that's no longer frozen." In Chinese culture, water can symbolise wealth and fortune. But wealth and power are not always clean, Wen said as he answered a question on the sacking last September of Shanghai's Communist Party boss Chen Liangyu for misusing city pension funds.

"While water can carry a boat, it can also overturn it," Wen said, quoting an emperor from the Tang dynasty, China's golden era of trade, wealth and openness.

China once again is opening to the outside world, and Wen noted the need for good relations with Japan, its "neighbour across a shallow sea".

After Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "ice breaking" visit to Beijing in October, Wen said he looks forward to an "ice-thawing" visit to Tokyo in April.

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