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)