Premier Wen Jiabao held an online chat with netizens yesterday. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Mr. Wen’s exchange with Internet users Saturday came ahead of the annual full session of China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, which starts Friday with the premier’s annual work report laying out the policy agenda for the coming year. The chat session, which Mr. Wen first did last year on the eve of the NPC, is part of broader efforts by the ruling Communist Party to make the government seem more responsive and accessible to the public, which generally has almost no chance to interact with its leaders.
While China’s government in recent years has tightened already strict controls over the Internet, officials have also sought to use the technology as a tool to monitor public opinion and to try to explain their policies to an increasingly vocal and demanding citizenry. That’s especially evident with the NPC, whose nearly 3,000 members have little power—they are largely expected to ratify laws and plans set by party leaders—but which the leadership wants to be seen as a conduit for public involvement in policy making. In addition to the premier’s Web chat, for example, the government has also established online suggestion sites where citizens can propose or comment on policies.
Mr. Wen’s chat session elicited more than 60,000 questions, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency, which arranged it. Mr. Wen didn’t address sensitive political issues in the two-hour discussion, but spoke on economic and social subjects ranging from employment and healthcare to product safety and the upcoming Shanghai Expo.
