Shanghai, China's largest city and economic hub, is introducing an
unprecedented "spokesperson system" to its local government,
legislature, court and prosecutor's office.
According to a recently-issued decree, the Shanghai Municipal
Government will take the lead by holding press conferences on
government work once every two weeks, while the Shanghai Municipal
People's Congress, the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the CPPCC
(Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference), the local
Higher People's Court and the People's Procuratorate will follow
suit.
Shanghai is not alone in this new undertaking. Earlier this year,
the Beijing Municipal Government began requiring all of its major
subordinate departments to appoint a leader as its spokesperson to
release information to the public on a regular basis.
On
May 28, the government of central China's Henan Province held a
symposium to discuss how to learn from the experiences of Beijing
and Shanghai in the near future. And in Qingdao, a coastal city in
east China's Shandong Province, the first regular government press
conference has been scheduled for Friday.
The nationwide emergence of the "spokesperson system" at the local
government level will establish a standard procedure for the
release of government information and has demonstrated China's
determination to increase transparency in its government
operations, said Professor Pu Xingzu with the School of
International Affairs and Public Relations of Shanghai-based Fudan
University.
During China's over-2,000-year long feudal history, ordinary
Chinese people became accustomed to being excluded from
participation in government decision-making and to blindly
following official orders. A favorite philosophy for Chinese rulers
in ancient times was that "you should make the common people do
what they are told, but never let them know why".
Since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, a modern
administrative system has been gradually established in the
country, and, beginning in the 1990s, the country began
implementing unprecedented, massive reforms to make its government
more transparent.
As
a result, government documents which used to be "confidential" or
"for officials' eyes only" have been opened to the public, and
governments at all levels across the country have started to
subject themselves to public supervision, releasing their latest
policies and work performance on a regular basis.
However, the recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) in China and its impact on Chinese society have shown that
much more still needs to be done to increase government
transparency.
Seeing the SARS panic spread among the general public due to
delayed reports and misleading figures from the government, the
Chinese central government immediately pledged to report every new
SARS case in a timely manner and to severely punish officials who
attempt to conceal or distort facts related to the new
epidemic.
The latest survey conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences found that more than 70 percent of Beijing residents have
full confidence that China will eventually defeat SARS.
"Some people used to worry that a candid and timely release of
information could lead to turmoil and chaos. This kind of view has
now been proven completely wrong and unfounded," said Professor
Pu.
"Although the new government transparency campaign was not directly
triggered by the SARS outbreak, this unexpected crisis did tell us
how important and necessary it is for the government to undergo
more reforms and changes," Pu added.
Guangzhou, the capital of south China's Guangdong Province, where
the first SARS case was reported, has adopted its Regulations on
Government Information Release, the first of its kind for a local
government in China.
The government has the obligation to release information because
ordinary citizens have the right to be informed, says the
regulations, something previously unheard of in China.
(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2003)