Newsroom August 2013

Wednesday 8 April 2013

“ Do You Know Two Sessions ”

Recently , a video has been spread on the Internet pervasively which is named “ Do you know two sessions ?” ( The National Political Congress and the National People ’ s Political Consultative Conference ). A number of unexpected and “ brave ” answers from the people investigated in the video not only catch the eyeballs of netizens but inform us of a nationwide

discussion that to what degree do the Chinese people get involved in politics voluntarily . With respect to this question , we have to figure out three major points : the status quo of the participation of Chinese people in politics , how well the election mechanism for the representative works , and the ramifications brought up by the mechanism upon the Chinese people . A middle aged woman in the

video expressed her thought that it is too little to generate influences on the policies as an individual . “ I am just an ordinary person , so I can do nothing about it ” The claim that as an individual , we can do little to affect politics is echoed by many other people on the Internet . The survey set up by Tecent ( the Chinese version of Facebook ) indicates 52.32 % of the people attribute the

ineffectiveness as an individual to the indifference towards politics . Why do many Chinese people think their suggestions do not count ? Actually it leads to the next mechanism issue whether , as a Chinese citizen , our votes count . A old man in the video the disconnection b e t w e e n themselves a n d t h e representative , who is going to

attend the two session and to be on behalf of the people to deliver the problems in

our region and its possible solutions we proposed to the central government . “ Theoretically , there is a process for us to vote for who should be the representative . But , the officials would give us a name and then we just vote for the person . Usually we even do not know the candidate ’ s name ” The problem above is not an individual case but prevalent

exiting in the society , especially in the rural areas whose population tales