An e-mail from a farmer living in northwest China suggesting
the state set up a special fund for restoring the ecological
system was sent to the State Environmental Protection Administration
(SEPA) Tuesday, the World Environment Day.
In the letter,
35-year-old Yang Ting urged the fund should be used to recover
the vegetation in the Hexi Corridor of northwest China's Gansu
Province and prevent the region from becoming a source of
dust storm in northern China.
E-mails calling
for environmental protection effort have been flooding to
the mailbox at the SEPA's web site these days, said a SEPA
official.
Yang's suggestion
was supported by a large number of web users. SEPA officials
said the advice is conducive to China's environmental safety
and will be considered seriously.
A hard-working
farmer in Gansu Province, Yang witnessed how the aqueduct
in his village was covered by sand and dust this spring. Serious
dust storms hit the area almost every year, as a result of
disappearance of vegetation. The sand and dust was blown to
other regions of northern China and even to the lower reaches
of the Yangtze River in east China.
Previously, the
general public in China let the government know their opinions
and demands through deputies to people's congresses at various
levels or by writing letters and paying visits to governmental
departments.
Nowadays, under
the guidance of the government, more and more Chinese use
the Internet to directly express their opinions and take part
in making decisions and laws.
The revision of
China's marriage law has drawn wide attention in the country.
Zhao Yuhong in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China, sent
an e-mail to the web site of the Standing Committee of the
National People's Congress (NPC), suggesting that the revised
marriage law should include articles forbidding the practice
of " keeping concubine or mistress" and giving compensation
to the aggrieved side in divorce.
Proposals of this
kind were at last adopted in the amendment.
Zhao has a painful
marriage experience. She got divorced in 1999 for her husband
bought a house and lived with another woman there. When they
divorced, nothing was left for Zhao except their old apartment.
She felt unfair.
"If the marriage
law had been revised several years earlier, I would have striven
for my due rights by legal means," said Zhao.
Officials from
the NPC Standing Committee said that the Internet may serve
politics and accelerate the process of China's socialist democracy.
Under the market
economic system, the change in interest relations stimulates
people's willingness to participate in politics. And the Internet
provides public with a rapid and cheap access to political
affairs, said experts.
In drafting China's
tenth five-year plan for social and economic development (2001-2005),
the State Development Planning Commission also resorted to
the Internet for public opinions. The commission received
more than 10,000 pieces of advice from the public via the
web, and adopted over 300.
Zeng Peiyan, minister
in charge of the commission, said the active public participation
is favorable for the implementation of the plan.
Chen Yu, a web
expert, said the Internet will increase the efficiency and
transparency of the government and enable the public to better
supervise the government.
China launched
the "government online" project in 1999, with an
aim to promote direct contact between the government and the
public via the Internet.
So far, nearly
3,000 web sites run by government departments at various levels
have been set up. And the number of Internet users in China
has exceeded 20 million.
(People's Daily
06/05/2001)
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