In the letter, 35-year-old Yang Ting urged the fund should be used to recover the vegetation in the Hexi Corridor of northwest China's Gansu Province and prevent the region from becoming a source of dust storm in northern China.

E-mails calling for environmental protection effort have been flooding to the mailbox at the SEPA's web site these days, said a SEPA official.

Yang's suggestion was supported by a large number of web users. SEPA officials said the advice is conducive to China's environmental safety and will be considered seriously.

A hard-working farmer in Gansu Province, Yang witnessed how the aqueduct in his village was covered by sand and dust this spring. Serious dust storms hit the area almost every year, as a result of disappearance of vegetation. The sand and dust was blown to other regions of northern China and even to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in east China.

Previously, the general public in China let the government know their opinions and demands through deputies to people's congresses at various levels or by writing letters and paying visits to governmental departments.

Nowadays, under the guidance of the government, more and more Chinese use the Internet to directly express their opinions and take part in making decisions and laws.

The revision of China's marriage law has drawn wide attention in the country. Zhao Yuhong in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China, sent an e-mail to the web site of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), suggesting that the revised marriage law should include articles forbidding the practice of "keeping concubine or mistress" and giving compensation to the aggrieved side in divorce.

Proposals of this kind were at last adopted in the amendment.

Zhao has a painful marriage experience. She got divorced in 1999 for her husband bought a house and lived with another woman there. When they divorced, nothing was left for Zhao except their old apartment. She felt unfair.

"If the marriage law had been revised several years earlier, I would have striven for my due rights by legal means," said Zhao.

Officials from the NPC Standing Committee said that the Internet may serve politics and accelerate the process of China's socialist democracy.

Under the market economic system, the change in interest relations stimulates people's willingness to participate in politics. And the Internet provides public with a rapid and cheap access to political affairs, said experts.

In drafting China's 10th five-year plan for social and economic development (2001-2005), the State Development Planning Commission also resorted to Internet for public opinions. The commission received more than 10,000 pieces of advice from the public via the web, and adopted over 300.

Zeng Peiyan, minister in charge of the commission, said the active public participation is favorable for the implementation of the plan.

Chen Yu, a web expert, said Internet will increase efficiency and transparency of the government and enable the public to better supervise the government.

China launched the "government online" project in 1999, with an aim to promote direct contact between the government and the public via the Internet.

So far, nearly 3,000 web sites run by government departments at various levels have been set up. And the number of Internet users in China has exceeded 20 million.

(People's Daily 06/05/2001)