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Draft regulations on making government information public were adopted in principle by the State Council on Wednesday. The regulations will be published and take effect after further revision.

Whatever will be in the final version of these regulations, the significance of their adoption can never be overestimated.

To have these rules to regulate central and local governments on their governing transparency indicates the fundamental change in the concept of the nature of government.

The assumption by many officials that they in their positions naturally represent the general public lets them assume that they can make decisions on behalf of the citizens without citizens' being informed.

With this frame of mind, what needs to be made public to the general public has become a matter of personal decision.

The cover-up of the real situation of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) by some government officials in 2003 was a typical example.

A lack of transparency for government information can be disastrous. Without dismissal of officials who lied to the public about what was really happening with SARS, who knows how many more people would have fallen victim to SARS and how many more efforts would have been needed to bring the virus under control.

Behind the wall that separates the public from what they are entitled to know can be dirty tricks bringing illegal wealth to corrupt officials while causing harm to the interests of the public and the State.

Behind that wall was the misuse of Shanghai's social security fund allegedly involving a cluster of officials including former Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Liangyu. So were other dirty dealings, the exposure of which has put involved ranking officials in jail.

These regulations reflect the nature of governments at all levels as public institutions that govern the country or a region on behalf of their citizens.

The rules tell government decision makers what the public is entitled to know about their work.

Being informed is the precondition for citizens' participation in and supervision of the public affairs that affect their interests.

From this perspective, the adoption of these draft regulations is of great significance in building an open, clean and honest government.

(China Daily January 19, 2007)