The 'Two Meetings' are gatherings of the representatives from all over the country of the People's Congress the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) that take place in Beijing annually in March.

State-owned news agency Xinhua's Chinese home page has commemorated the start of the 'Two Meetings' yesterday with a massive headline reading:

If I was a People's Congress representative or a member of the CPPCC, I would propose...

The headline links to a forum where readers are asked for their proposals and suggestions. Below is a roughly translated random selection of comments from the forum:

- Greatly increase taxes on the urban entertainment industry



- Ensure that citizens can exercize their political rights



- Fight corruption (many comments, some very long, discuss this issue)



- Urgently and immediately discuss and work out a fair and just Chinese retirement law!



- I also want to ask the premier: Do you think education reform has succeeded?



- Tax reform (long, detailed posts about this)



- The problem of laid off workers from state-owned enterprises needs to be addressed



- A list:
1. Implement standard international food safety regulations 

2. Take measure to stop government monoploies (especially in medical treatment, electricity supply, railways, telecommunications, water supply, land, and fuel)

3. Greatly increase railway construction

4. Stop charging tolls on national and provincial highways, increase fuel taxes

5. Change the 5 level adminsstrative structure into a 3 level structure

6. Stop issuing of new A shares ... complete reform of listed companies

7. Change the status of peasants so that they become real citizens

8. The emperor controls the waters, success is in dredging, failure is in damming: give the people supervisory powers (a reference to to the Three Gorges dam?)



- Was there any result from the proposals submitted last year?



- Take away the cars given to government cadres



- Strengthen research into laws about rape and gang rape



- Land ownership issues must be cleared up

- Stop cadres causing traffic jams by taking over lanes and redirecting traffic