Year of Dragon: Long may the long reign in China(2)

More than economic concerns

On the eve of the Spring Festival, President Hu Jintao visited grassroots urban and rural areas in Beijing, extending greetings to the people.

Hu went to the small village Tianxianyu near the Great Wall in Beijing's northern mountainous area, where he joined villagers asking about their livelihood and watching a dragon dance to welcome the New Year.

In a similar action that is regarded as the central authorities' concern for the people, Premier Wen went to an oilfield in northwestern Gansu Province on Saturday.

Festivity also surrounded Wukan, a village in the southern province of Guangdong which came into international spotlight for protests that lasted more than three months against illegal land requisition and corruptions in village financing and elections.

The turbulence since September receded at the end of last year after a senior provincial official vowed, in a rare high-profile dialogue with protesters, to address the villagers' complaints and launch a probe.

Zhu Mingguo, vice secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, said that most of the villagers' appeals and complaints were reasonable.

Provincial investigators later announced that there were violations in the village's land requisition and the village committee election in February 2011 was invalid.

Now people in Wukan said their New Year wish is a smooth village committee election slated after the Spring Festival holidays.

"We hope the new committee can solve the land problems soon and completely," said a villager, Zhang Yi.

Wukan has been taken as an example about how the government should respond to the public's concerns and outcries as some places in the country are troubled by protests over land requisitions, pollution concerns and other problems amid rapid urbanization and industrialization.

Actually, social stability has been on the government's top agenda as it endeavors to let all the people share the fruit of the country's economic development.

At a provincial legislators' session earlier this month, Wang Yang, Guangdong's Party chief, warned that the biggest challenge faced by Guangdong is not economic but social problems.

Premier Wen also underscored the improvement of people's livelihoods, democracy, equity and justice in his speech at Saturday's gathering.

Year of world

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has delivered a video message wishing the Chinese people Happy New Year.

He said the New Year is a season of renewal and the Year of the Dragon "reminds us of our dynamism, our energy, our power to make a difference."

Some foreigners are expecting the Chinese dragon to bring them fortune.

Martin Judge, founder of a human resources service company based in Philadelphia, the United States, said his company has decided to expand business to two more Chinese cities in the Year of the Dragon following Beijing and Shanghai.

The financial crisis came as a blow to the company's ambition of taking 1 billion U.S. dollars by 2016, according to Judge.

However, China has become the company's fastest-growing market since it entered the country three years ago, which Judge expects to surpass North America to become its biggest market in the world.

The company expects to launch 10 offices in the Chinese mainland by 2015.

Judge said that he believes the world can share the dynamism, auspice and festivity that the Year of the Dragon brings to China.