Internet draws people closer to the people's sessions

• Source: Global Times
• [21:03 March 10 2010]
• Comments

GT: How many people are participating in these online debates?

Yang: By now, more than 50,000 netizens have registered to discuss the "two sessions," while last year, there were about 20,000 during the whole period of the two sessions.

By Wednesday, there were more than 1,500 verified proposals and there are many more, about 2,000 comments and replies every day. Last year, there were over 3,700 proposals submitted. Considering the schedule of the ongoing two sessions, I believe this year's number will surpass last year's.

There were more than 7,000 proposals and comments waiting to be verified Wednesday, but our staff is somewhat shorthanded.

Huazi: Tianya's visitor count has picked up a lot. But we think it's mainly because of people getting back to routine life after the Spring Festival and the temperature going up again.

However, we noticed that at the present two sessions, Premier Wen Jiabao's statement of "to let people live with more dignity" triggered hot discussion among netizens.

GT: Have netizens' proposals at people. com.cn influenced our decision-mak-ers? What do they think of netizens' proposals?

Yang: We launched such a section not only to encourage people to make their own proposals, but also to let their voices heard by decision-makers, so that issues that concern ordinary people could be resolved. Our board moderators have delivered some, and will deliver more, outstanding virtual proposals to some of our NPC deputies and CPPCC members.

We also invited some of the delegates to our website and conducted interviews with them. In each interview, we asked them to reply to netizens' proposals.

Some of them really appreciate netizens' proposals, finding them very enlightening. Shao Hong, deputy director of the CPPCC Committee for Handling Proposals said, in our interview that, "I was moved by netizens' proposals, as I found that there were so many people caring about our state affairs. Meanwhile, I was inspired a lot. Many suggestions are very helpful to us."

We want to build a bridge between ordinary people and our decision-makers, and build an atmosphere of communication.

GT: To what extend could forums like tianya influence the decision-making process?

Huazi: We hardly ever see discussions on forums that could influence the state's policymaking. But forums have certainly provided the government a convenient and direct channel through which it can be informed of public opinions.

I personally think that governments could benefit from this. I'm glad to see that in recent years governments at all levels have been paying more and more attentions to online opinions. It's a good phenomenon.

GT: What do you think are the advantages of netizens' spontaneous discus-sions on government affairs?

Huazi: Tianya is more grass-roots. At tianya, netizens' patriotic feelings and national concerns are usually expressed through their discussions on personal affairs and livelihood.

There is less direct participation in state affairs here, but there are indeed many criticisms about local government's malfeasance and corruption.

The advantage of grass-roots forums are that the voices here are authentic and sometimes more sincere.