News, page 2
Aug 8, 2011
Translated by Zhu Na
Original article: [ Chinese] 

Consulting the people about policies, learning their needs, and seeking suggestions from them were mentioned in the recently issued, “Notice to Further the Openness of Government Affairs to the Public to Strengthen Services” (“Notice”) by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and State Council.

 Undoubtedly in current Chinese society, the public has lost trust in their government because of many social events. This is reflected in many aspects such as whether the government has played a fair role, if measures are appropriate, or even if the information released by the government is true or not. What’s worse is that many suspicions are later confirmed, shaking the government's credibility.

 The government does not interact with the people and blocks information from them, behaving nontransparently, resulting in public distrust. When officials are being questioned under the public’s eye, they typically remain silent or know nothing of the situation. Sometimes, they draw a random conclusion without facts or any logic, and then show an “I don’t care if you believe it or not, but I believe it” attitude.

 These attitudes are often seen in many social public events such as the “South China Tiger” event, which happened a few years ago in Shaanxi. When the event occurred, the Shaanxi provincial Forestry Department paid no attention to the public’s questions, ultimately losing government credibility. Then there was the 2008 Weng’an riot resulting from the government’s delay in disclosing the truth. The public felt that their right to know was violated, so increasingly rumors spread inevitably becoming out of control, leading to the large scale riot. Finally, there was the recent “7.23” Wenzhou train accident, in which the public kept questioning because the public believed that the truth had yet to be revealed.

The “Notice” emphasizes “being transparent to sudden events and hot issues of most concerned to the public, objectively disclosing the situation of the event, government measures, public precautionary measures and investigation results, responding to public concerns without delay, guiding public opinion in the right direction,” which serves as a response and reflection for previous events.

The only way to eliminate misunderstandings is to make government information public and transparent. That is also why the “Notice” emphasized, “transparency as the principle, and non-transparency as the exception”. However, the reality is not so, when events attracting the public’s interest occurs, most of time the tradition of “non-transparency as the principle, transparency as the exception” is used. Even if information is disclosed, the public is confused because there are inadequate explanations and details. In the recently disclosed “three public consumptions” by the central government, there is still no standard, so how can you tell which has greater integrity, the Chinese Academy of Sciences spending 99.96 million yuan on receptions or the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development expending 260,000 yuan on receptions? Firstly, I don’t understand the data, how can I believe it?

To make government affairs public, the “Notice” also proposes a solution: specifically the ways to open up, measures to take, necessary procedures, etc. However, we believe a key prerequisite for truly implementing this transparency is that an official needs to serve the people wholeheartedly, fully understand the meaning of “consulting policies with the people, learning their needs, and seeking suggestions from them”, and be aware that the government's authority is conferred by the people. Making government affairs public is not a favor to the people, but the government’s undeniable legal duty.

Only by making government information public, can a healthy government exist, while also rebuilding its credibility, which is closely related to rebuilding society’s credibility because the government's good faith is the basis of all good faith throughout society. Only a government that has credibility can save a society that is suffering from a crisis of faith.