China should make efforts to establish a democratic and scientific policy-making system at different levels within the government.

This means important decisions should not be made hastily by an individual big shot.

When taking office in March 2003, Premier Wen Jiabao stressed that "the central government must make policies in a scientific and democratic way so as to guarantee the accuracy and effectiveness of policies."

He required the State Council and its governmental departments to establish a scientific policy-making system on the basis of democracy.

The system requires detailed investigations, full proofs, opinions solicited from people and collective discussions when making important policies.

Policy-making bodies at central and local levels are making efforts towards this end. However there is still a long way to go. Some policy-makers, for example, make arbitrary decisions without the detailed research required to support them.

Large amounts of land, for example, were designated for various kinds of development projects, such as university centres and high-tech parks, yet some of this land remains undeveloped for long periods of time.

In some areas, scarce funds are lavishly spent on constructing deluxe office buildings, parks and big squares.

These blindly invested projects can exceed the economic strengths that these places can bear, damaging people's interests and the government's image.

A city in Sichuan Province, for example, built an airport without making the necessary scientific analysis. The result is that it has remained in the red since opening in 2001.

This phenomenon also occurs when making public policy decisions on, for example, the current hot topic on the necessity of premarital medical examinations.

The Shanghai municipal government recently held a press conference, announcing that it will provide free premarital medical examinations for new couples.

The preferential treatment aims to encourage more couples to take medical examinations before marriage.

The new Regulation of Marriage Registration, which came into effect in October 2003, abolished the compulsory premarital medical examination that had been in existence for 17 years.

Siming District in Xiamen, Fujian Province, also provides free examinations, while Heilongjiang Province has even revised its Regulation on Mother and Baby Healthcare, which retains the compulsory premarital medical examination.

The regulation states that those who want to get married must take the examination and premarital health education. With the medical certificate, they can then register themselves at the marriage registration office.

Local governments said that they chose to do so in line with their practical situation.

In Shanghai, couples who took premarital medical examinations decreased sharply from 98 per cent in 2003 to 3 per cent in 2004. A similar trend has followed in other provinces.

Specific figures in the past two years are not available, but a figure from 2001 provides support for the need for premarital medical examinations. In that year, 8 million people nationwide took premarital medical examinations and 200,000 people were found to have pregnancy-affecting diseases.

These diseases included venereal diseases, AIDS, mental disorders and serious hereditary diseases.

We don't know whether medical experts were involved in the revision of the regulation on marriage registration, since they should know the outcome of terminating compulsory medical examinations before marriage.

Vice Health Minister Wang Longde said on August 31 that China may re-establish the premarital medical examination system.

Zhao Shaohua, vice-chairman of All-China Women's Federation, said at a seminar held in Beijing in July that if the rate of premarital medical examinations continues to decrease so sharply, families, society, the health of mothers and babies, and the quality of the population will be "seriously" affected.

An examination system can be established or abolished within a day. However, the outcome of that will be long-term. Maybe many infants born within the last two years suffer from diseases that could have been detected with a premarital medical examination.

Important policies should be made on the basis of detailed investigation and research. An expert and social hearing system should be set up to avoid making ill-conceived policies and the public policy-making process should be made transparent.

(China Daily September 14, 2005)