Vice environment minister seeks solutions via Wechat

Technology has changed the way people live their lives, and now it has started to change the way government works in China.

To illustrate this, a vice environment minister used Wechat to communicate with lower-level officials in a group talk seeking solutions to environmental problems.

According to The Beijing News, the mayors of 12 cities in Sichuan Province were invited to join a Wechat group chat chaired by China’s Vice Environment Minister Zhai Qing and Sichuan Vice Governor Yang Hongbo. The 12 mayors have to report their progress in dealing with certain local environmental issues every week.

On July 7, the Ministry of Environmental Protection held a teleconference. It was revealed there are still 107 environmental violation issues concerning the Yangtze River Economic Zone’s drinking water reserve area that are yet to be resolved. Among them, Sichuan Province has 30 cases, topping the list.

So, Zhai went to Sichuan to resolve the problems and formed a Wechat group to “communicate, investigate and supervise,” hoping that, together, they could work out problems one by one.

The city governments involved obviously speeded up their efforts to deal with environmental problems after the meeting and Wechat group chat.