March 14, 2008
Mobile phones make politics more accessible for ordinary Chinese
During this year's annual full sessions of the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, mobile phones have played a role in promoting "democracy with Chinese characteristics," reports Xinhuanet.
"For several consecutive days, we were seeing a dozen mobile phone messages coming in every second through our platform," said Ms. Xu, a staff with China Mobile who asked to be identified only by her surname. "Surprisingly, all the questions were addressed to Premier Wen Jiabao."
By Tuesday, a campaign called "Ask the Premier," jointly launched by Xinhuanet.com and China Mobile for their 100 million plus mobile phone users, had collected over 250,000 short messages, a substantial portion of which were from blue-collars, farmers, and students.
The Chinese government encourages grass-root citizens to "orderly participate in politics" to expand democracy, according to Beijing-based political observer."
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