The Chinese character "Lian", or "clean governance," has been chosen by Chinese netizens as the character of the year 2015, and "Internet Plus" as the word/phrase of the year.
The winners were chosen after an online poll from more than 11,000 candidate characters and words recommended by Internet users, the selection's co-organizers -- the Chinese National Language Monitoring and Research Center and the Commercial Press announced on Monday.
Also, the character "Kong," (terror) and the word "counterterrorism" were chosen as representative of international affairs.
Runners-up included "slump," "second child," "chaotic" and "Islamic State" ISIL or Daesh, with "smog", "Belt and Road" and "refugee" also popular candidates.
Cultural experts believe that the Chinese character and word/phrase of the year indicates individual sentiment and the social values of Chinese people.
Last year's character and word/phrase were "law" and "anticorruption."
