Visit to Pujiang county 20 years ago paved way for villagers' regular meetings with officials

For the past 20 years, officials in Pujiang county, Zhejiang province, have been routinely visiting villages and communities to listen to and solve people's problems.

Without the need to make an appointment, villagers can raise any issue that is bothering them with the officials when they visit the village on the 15th of each month.

The officials sometimes come to the village before that date if residents feel their issues are particularly urgent, said Zhu Yutang, who comes from Xingguang village.

The 74-year-old added: "We are so used to seeing the Party chief or county head here in the village. What's important for us is that they aren't just here for show. The villagers know the officials can provide solutions on the spot."

Zhu said that as the officials make regular visits, residents no longer need to leave the village to raise their concerns. At the same time, the officials gain a clear picture of the issues that are worrying people the most.

"Having officials visit villages to solve people's problems may be a common practice in Pujiang now, but 20 years ago, such a breakthrough was made when filing petitions to a higher authority was the best way for villagers to make the local government take their problems seriously," Zhu said.

That breakthrough, known as the "Pujiang experience", was made by President Xi Jinping, who at the time was secretary of the Communist Party of China Zhejiang provincial committee. The practice has helped the county cut the number of public complaints filed by letter or in person from 10,307 in 2002 to 629 last year.

In the book Zhejiang, China: A New Vision of Development, which contains essays written by Xi for a column in Zhejiang Daily, a local newspaper, he writes that reaching out to people and helping them solve their problems is the duty and responsibility of officials. Resolving social disputes from the roots is also key to promoting social harmony and stability.

On Sept 8, 2003, a notice placed on the front page of Pujiang News attracted the attention of people in the county. It stated that provincial leaders would visit Pujiang in the middle of that month to handle people's complaints and petitions.

Zhang Guoqiang, former head of the Pujiang Bureau of Letters and Visits, said the visit immediately became the most discussed topic in the county, as it was commonplace for people to bring issues to higher authorities, such as county or provincial governments, but such authorities never came to villages to hear complaints.

A series of new social problems began to emerge and escalate in Pujiang after China started to reform and enter a phase of fast development, Zhang said.

He added that because local people are very outspoken, Pujiang was well known in Zhejiang for the number of public complaints that had to be tackled.

"The number of xinfang cases in the county rose for 10 consecutive years after 1992 when issues directly affecting people's personal interests surfaced during renovation of old neighborhoods, the restructuring of State-owned enterprises, or relocation projects to make way for reservoirs," Zhang said.