With the present crop of National People's Congress (NPC) deputies currently in their last year of duty, hopefully some of their less worthy opinions won't be echoed by their heirs next year. Some of the opinions from this year's "two meetings" the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) were disappointing.  Compared with the huge amount of work still facing this rapidly changing country, and many of the well-researched policy papers furnished by other participants, they were personal, petty and marginal.
Proposals for changing the date or name of a hallmark day, or for assigning an honorary title to a mountain or flower, are the stuff of backpage columns in newspapers' weekend editions. It may be fun to read them, but I really can't see why they need bringing up at the national political forum when there are more serious matters to be dealt with. Consultation and communication are important for clarifying issues and solving problems. But if a consultative forum is not used for issue-oriented debate, but to parade individual's interests, the forum is not doing its work. Is there any likelihood, I am wondering, for "the two meetings" to release to the public, following the closure of each session, a record of what all participants did how many opinions they raised and what they were about. This may be a useful way of helping them focus. Hopefully the new group due to join the more than 2,000 deputies next year will encourage other members to get their priorities in order. According to a proposal from the NPC Standing Committee, the committee's leading group, new deputies representing the nation's migrant workers will take part in next year's session. Frequently, these menial workers are victims of urban prejudice. Many also face bureaucratic problems in both their hometowns and adopted cities. Employers often fail to pay them on time and some are laid off without ever receiving their wages. But despite the difficulties they face, the migrants have contributed an enormous amount to the country. From Shenzhen to Shanghai to Beijing, all China's big cities owe their rising skylines to migrant workers. They are also playing a crucial role in all the new manufacturing zones, like those clustered in the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas, or around Beijing and Tianjin. Having migrant workers' voices heard in the national policy-making forum reflects the nation's gratitude to this hard-working section of society. Many important reforms will begin in the coming years, designed to build a social security umbrella, reform medical insurance, improve the quality of education, strengthen the rule of law and reform the urban real estate market. Having experienced so much hardship, migrant workers can offer the NPC a fresh perspective on society's problems, helping make these reforms more effective. It will be interesting to see where the new delegates are drawn from - the electronic factory towns of the Pearl River Delta? Shanghai's Pudong? Or Beijing's Olympic construction sites? Even more interesting will be the issues they raise - labor rights? The inconvenience caused by the separate administration of urban and rural household registration? Or migrants' children's access to education? E-mail: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 03/12/2007 page4)
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