The 14th Five-year Plan (2021-25) is the first five-year period after reaching China's first centenary goal, that is, to complete building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the time the Communist Party of China celebrates its centenary in 2021. It is a critical juncture for China to embark on the journey to build China into a great modern socialist country, that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by the time the People's Republic of China celebrates its centenary in 2049.

Thus, how to do a good job during the 14th Five-Year Plan period becomes a question hanging over the government's head. In order to formulate an effective five-year plan, the Chinese Government solicited the public's opinions, ideas and suggestions online during August 16-29. Netizens can contribute their wisdom in a special column on the official websites of the People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and China Media Group. Their opinions will be extracted and reported to the Central Government as reference for the final decision of the 14th Five-Year Plan.

Nowadays, the Internet is widely used across the country, and this is the precondition that makes it possible for online opinion collecting. This is seen as the most direct way to reach as many people as possible for their opinions.

How to work out a feasible blueprint, so that the scale, speed, structure, efficiency and quality of the country's economic and social development can be best promoted? The answer lies in the people's wisdom. It's widely believed by the Chinese society that, to base the state's top-level decision-making on the wisdom of the vast grassroots will produce the most effective plans and strategies for the country's five-year development.

New approach to the public's voices

Hua Ning (www.people.com.cn): To pool wisdom from all walks of life is crucial for successful planning of the 14th Five-Year Plan, and the online operation will to the extent collect the public's wisdom. This is also an effective method for them to exercise their rights as masters of the country.

The people talk about things related to themselves on the opinion column and then the highest common factors are thus found out.

High-quality suggestions like "removing white pollution and prevention of slipping back to poverty" are abundant. Every piece of suggestion reveals the public's high expectations on better life in the future. To transfuse the people's ideas and anticipations into the state's five-year plan is how the democracy of political participation by the people is realized. It will surely help to maximize the country's social and economic development.

To bring democracy into full play by listening to the public's voices is an excellent tradition in the Party's state governance. China began to solicit the public's opinions since the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1986-90), but at that time, there was no Internet. Today, as many people as possible can be asked for their opinions. The online opinion column is also a strong response to the public's enthusiasm for participation in the country's political life. It showcases the advantages of China's socialist democratic governance. By relying on the people, China can go as far as it wishes to.

A blueprint for national economy and social development based on the public's wisdom and decision will surely win support from the people and go smoothly in the upcoming five years.

Xu Xiangdong (www.scol.com.cn): According to China Internet Network Information Center, by March, 64.5 percent of the Chinese population had got access to the Internet. A large number of netizens get to know about domestic and international affairs, express their demands and opinions, report their living conditions and participate in political life online. Gradually, governments at various levels have also learned to solicit opinions on major plans related to people's life.

The people's expectations are the direction of the government's work. The merit of soliciting opinions on how to formulate the 14th Five-Year Plan is convenience and speed. The public can upload their opinions and suggestions at home, on buses, in the subway, and so on by just writing and clicking on their computers or cellphones. Netizens will feel more like talking about what they want in this way. Besides, opinions collected in this way is more credible. The last point is particularly important, as only based on truth, whether it's about good or bad things, can the government hammer out plans that really helps with people's life.

Based on people's will

Editorial (Beijing Youth Daily): The Five-Year Plan is closely related to people's life and various aspects of social and economic development. In order to work out a proper blueprint, it's important to combine top-level strategy designs with grassroots opinions. The public's participation should be encouraged, so that people's wisdom, experts' suggestions and grassroots' experience can all be absorbed into the planning.

The public is asked for opinions under 23 themes, referring to strategic topics like science innovation and village rejuvenation, and also small topics like housing security, consumption upgrading, income distribution, etc. The planning is thus expected to fully reflect the people's demands and expectations. It is not only carrying out the governance concept of development for the people and by the people, but also trying to make the people really feel happy with the life.

In such a populous country as China, it depends on the public's wisdom to translate economic growth into tangible improvement of people's livelihood and to sustain the vitality of growth, as only in this way can in-depth conflicts in the society be tackled. We are now faced with bottlenecks in social and economic development, like how to improve the quality, efficiency, fairness and sustainability of development. How to crack these nuts? The answer is to be found from the people's opinions and ideas.

On the first day the opinion column was put online, opinions began to pour in, ranging from college graduates' employment, to how to regulate house renting, to how to raise the public's moral standards, etc. Their participation shows the public's interest in the country's development in stability and its reform and innovation.

To solicit opinions through the Internet is a crucial channel to listen to the public's voices, from which, governments at various levels will find out difficulties and priorities of their work. The key is to make sure that the public feel like to tell truth and do not hide their difficulties or problems. More importantly, governments at various levels must take tangible actions to really help the people out of difficulty, rather than paying no attention to their opinions after the collecting work.

Liu Li (www.sohu.com): The 14th Five-Year Plan is not only the country's key strategy for national development, but also relates to immediate rights and interests. The efforts to build up a better China requires the participation of every people. To solicit the public's opinions shows the state's respect to the people's feelings and demands, and also their rights to participate in state governance.

China will open a new chapter in the 14th Five-Year Plan period and embark on the journey to fully build a modern socialist country. At this critical moment, we need road maps as specific as possible and thus every member of the Chinese society is supposed to contribute their ideas to the planning. With the help of widespread Internet connection, the government should take advantage of this modern technology to collect ideas, opinions, and suggestions from the public. The government has the obligation to write down their ideas and classify these ideas and then truly make use of their ideas in the making of the 14th Five-Year Plan.

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo