China's fundamental political system in mobile phones
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E-mail Xinhua, March 15, 2015
Everybody knows that iPhone is a product of Apple, but not many people would think there was a relationship between the boom of mobilephones in China and its fundamental political system.
However, there would be nowhere near as many as the current 1.29 billion mobile phones being used in China without the National People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature whose annual session is scheduled to close Sunday.
Just a few decades ago, few people could imagine that everyone in their family would own a mobile phone.
Things began to change in 1979, when the NPC passed the Law on Chinese-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures, which was followed by the Law on Foreign-Capital Enterprises in 1986. The two laws made it possible for foreign companies to invest in what had been a closed country.
At that time, controversies remained on whether the socialist China should make laws to protect foreign enterprises from capitalist economies.
But after the laws were made, the question was not whether but how to protect foreign investment in China.
Motorola set up its Beijing office in 1987, and its company in Tianjin in 1992, backed by an investment of 120 million U.S. dollars.
The next turning point was to be 1992, when China established itself as a "socialist market economy" and adopted this into the Constitution.
Since then, the NPC and its Standing Committee have enacted and revised more laws to better suit social and economic development, including the Civil Law, Property Law, Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights, Advertising Law and Anti-monopoly Law.
"If we look at research, development, production, sales, after-sales and content, a mobile phone is related to nearly all the current laws in China," said Liang Ying, director of the research office under the legislative affairs commission of the NPC Standing Committee.
Lawmakers are mulling harsher punishment for non-accessible downloaded content and the sharing of customers information.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) imposed a record fine of 6.09 billion yuan (994 million U.S. dollars) last month on mobile chip maker Qualcomm for abusing its market dominance as it charged discriminatory fees when licensing mobile chip technology.
"Qualcomm's practices [...] violated China's anti-monopoly rules," according to an NDRC statement.
Lawmakers also inspected law enforcement of intellectual property rights, work safety, product quality and market order every year, which helped promote the development of mobile industries.
Mobile phones have never been closer to people's political lives, as the government is strengthening communication channels through the mobile Internet.
The NPC also opened an account on popular messaging app WeChat to post information about the annual session.
During the session, highlights of Premier Li Keqiang's government work report were forwarded through mobile Internet, raising widespread discussion among the nation.
Some mobile phone developers and producers are NPC deputies.
The image of Lei Jun, head of mobile phone upstart Xiaomi, taking a selfie with a Xiaomi before the Great Hall of the People was one of the most shared pictures online.
His proposal on developing the IT industry was also widely discussed during the NPC session.
Some deputies have WeChat accounts to draw public opinions, giving the public access to the once mysterious process of political decision making.
Deputies said the entry to and boom of mobile phones has reflected how the 61-year-old system of people's congresses influences the lives of the public.
"The fundamental political system, in line with the principle of 'from the masses, to the masses,' will improve people's lives more in the future," said NPC deputy Liu Qingfeng.
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