HERE TO HELP: "Better service, no power abuse" is the new approach by urban
management officers to win support from ordinary citizens (ZHAO XIAOMING)

Benefits From OlympicsBefore the Olympic Games, the Chinese nation has invested billions of dollars and tons of passion in preparation, hoping to show the world its peace-loving culture, development achievements and aspiration to integrate with the world.

Deep-rooted interest conflicts between China and the Western world of course will not vanish only because of Beijing's hosting of the world's largest sporting gala. However, foreign media's in-depth and unbiased reporting, even if they focus only on the country's pressing problems such as issues of air pollution and still poor working conditions of some migrant workers, will help people in their home countries understand China more accurately.

In fact, the Chinese people benefit more from hosting the Olympic Games.

In the run-up to the Games, Beijing's capital infrastructure was greatly improved with the availability of more and more user-friendly facilities. Food safety monitoring was also tightened.

More significantly, thanks to a $25-billion pollution control campaign, as well as the implementation of strict car restrictions and shutdown of polluting industrial enterprises in surrounding areas, Beijing is having a growing number of days with less pollution or better air quality.

Though many of such initiatives were originally launched for the purpose of meeting Beijing's Olympic commitments, their beneficiaries are mostly local residents.

From this point of view, the Beijing Olympic Games represent a golden opportunity of the Chinese people to realize a better livelihood.

International Herald Leader

Huge Profits-What Cost?

For years, the property sector has been regarded as a pillar industry of the Chinese economy. This conclusion is based on its contribution to economic growth, totally regardless of this sector's enormous consumption of energy.

While bringing huge profits, the real estate sector also devours massive amounts of steel, nonferrous metals, cement, bricks and other energy-consuming materials. Every year, China will see 2 billion square meters of new buildings erected. In this process, the total energy consumption hits 600 million tons of standard coal equivalent, accounting for 30 percent of the nation's annual total.

Worse still, the present tendency for office buildings, hotels and shopping malls, namely "bigger is beautiful, means increasing energy consumption.

Meanwhile, the growing number of unsold homes has deteriorated the situation. When buildings remain vacant for long periods, they are actually wasting resources.

Nowadays, apartment buildings standing vacant are commonplace worldwide. Some Western countries have severe and concrete measures to deal with this problem. In the Netherlands, if a house is kept vacant for one year, others can live in it; and in Sweden and Germany such houses will be demolished.

Energy conservation is emerging as a global concern. So it's necessary to seriously consider the waste in the property sector and take measures to curb this issue.

Beijing Evening News

Doing Government's Work

Xinyang is a less developed city in central China's Henan Province. Over the past years, however, a large amount of money from the public coffers had been embezzled to build two villa clusters for local officials. Investigations into this scandal are underway after it was recently disclosed to the public through the Internet.

Here, the Internet played a crucial role. But why does ordinary people instead of the government's anti-corruption departments always reveal such cases?

The public's opinions and online exposure are external supervision only, and they must be supplemented to the government's internal anti-corruption mechanism.

By now, only a few officials involved in Xinyang's "villa corruption" case have been punished. Without transparency, openness and tangible accountability, it's hard to expect all of those corrupt officials to be confirmed and severely punished.

The development of the Internet makes it easier for the public to monitor cases of corruption, but to some extent active public supervision implies the absence or ineffectiveness of internal supervision of government agencies.

Guangzhou Daily

Regulations Restrict Power

Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, has recently revised the local regulations on urban management. According to a newly added article, urban management officers must respect the dignity of others and refrain from using violence against lawbreakers under any circumstances.

According to rough statistics, urban management officers have over 300 rights covering 13 areas, including safety and sanitation along city streets. As a result, they are always found in conflicts with the ordinary people, particularly unlicensed street peddlers. Guangzhou's new regulations mean to restrict the officers' power and reduce the cases of abuse resulting from urban management disputes.

Of course, it's unfair to blame all the problems on urban management officers. Actually many of the problems result from loopholes in the current urban management system. If the loopholes are not addressed, there will be two consequences: either violence or inaction of urban management officers. In the current condition, the most practical way is to restrict the officers' powers and let them act according to explicit rules.

Disputes are not unavoidable. Guang-zhou's new regulations on urban management have shown a new way to find a solution to this pressing issue.

The Beijing News