Can the value of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) as a multi-party organization to exercise democratic supervision over state policies and important issues really be embodied in its proposals? Moreover, do its proposals really get the attention of departments concerned? For answers to these and other questions, a china.org.cn staff reporter interviewed Yu Shenglong, a CPPCC member and a former vice-chair of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Since the fourth session of the Ninth Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), CPPCC members, democratic parties and people's organizations concerned altogether submitted 3,737 proposals with the focus on those important issues regarding the economy and social development of our country as well as those prominent issues of concern to society. According to the laws concerned, the CPPCC Committee for Handling Proposals, after careful review, forwarded 3,566 to government departments concerned for appropriate action. Among them, 58 are from eight democratic parties and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, 33 from different member groups, and the rest (1,845) are all from individual CPPCC members, making up 79.8 percent of the total CPPCC members.

In Yu Shenglong's opinion, the state is attaching more and more importance to CPPCC proposals, which are reaching resolution more effectively. For those key proposals, the CPPCC Committee for Handling Proposals arranged various activities to facilitate their settlement by organizing talks between those who put forward the proposals and the government departments concerned, researching individual subjects, and visiting the departments concerned by the members who put forward the proposals and vise versa.

Yu related his own story as an example: In 2000, he put forward a proposal on enacting a law on traditional Chinese medicine. The CPPCC Committee for Handling Proposals organized the members concerned to hold a talk with State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, let the two sides fully exchange their views and consult with each other. Later the committee arranged for some members and the heads from departments concerned to go to Guangdong, Yunnan, Guizhou for investigation and study, so as to collect the opinions of local people. After the investigation, the committee organized discussions, and wrote and forwarded a report to the department concerned. It took only nine days before the department gave its response.

Last year, when Yu proposed establishing a Traditional Chinese Medicine Museum, the CPPCC again organized members concerned and the heads of departments concerned to go to Shanghai, Tianjin, Zhejiang for research. Yang Rudai, vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, attended the discussions himself and handed the report to Vice-Premier Li Lanqing. Vice-Premier Li wrote comments on the report on the same day. Four days later, the opinion of departments concerned was returned to the CPPCC. The Ministry of Finance decided to invest 1 million yuan as initial funds to build the museum.

In addition to this, Yu said that the past two years have seen much more emphasis being placed on the united role of Party, government and the CPPCC in the process of handling proposals from CPPCC members. Yu cited as an example the settlement of the proposal on improving the work of exit and entrance in Shenzhen last year. Vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee Wan Guoquan chaired talks among the CPPCC Committee for Handling Proposals, CPPCC members from Hong Kong, Macao, and government representatives from the State Development Planning Commission, Ministry of Public Security and General Administration of Customs. State Councilor Wu Yi, after learning about the problem through the newsletter, joined in the resolution of the issue.

Reviewing his experience over the past fives years in participating in the discussion of such affairs, Yu said that CPPCC members have been playing a more active role in the discussion and administration of state affairs and Party and the state are paying more attention to the proposals so that the proposals are settled more effectively.

(By Zhang Yan, china.org.cn staff reporter, translated by Zheng Guihong April 2, 2002)