(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-20 18:55

Cai Wu, State Council Information Office minister, recently said there was no document stating that when this new regulation expires on October 17 the country would return to the previous conditions.

"If practices show that it will help the international community know better about China, it is a good policy in accordance with the country's reform and opening up. Why is it necessary for us to change it?" he said. Heavy Workload, No "Occupation Risks"

With the institutional evolution, individual spokespersons are also scrambling to become more competent and recognized.

Wang Xuming, Ministry of Education spokesman, said "competent spokespersons shall be good at expressing themselves and communicating with others. They should be talented and well trained".

Wang, who himself once worked in media, proposed selecting government spokespersons from journalists who have enough knowledge on governmental operation.

He called for more people to become involved in the profession, pointing out the Ministry of Education information office only had four staff, despite the public's enormous attention to education. The workload for the office was thus really heavy

When asked if China's spokespersons faced "occupational risk", Cai said no such case had occurred where the spokesperson was blamed or punished for "making wrong or inappropriate remarks".

But he admitted spokespersons could do their jobs better. "Nowadays, most spokespersons are part-time, they concurrently do other jobs in their governmental departments. In future, they should be full-time spokespersons."

In addition, while the spokespersons are very familiar with government operations and have a good understanding about various policies, most  lacked journalistic knowledge and training. Some were still not good at communicating with journalists, he said.

The State Council Information Office is currently providing training courses to spokespersons from ministries and local governments, Cai said.

"With the coming of the Beijing Olympic Games, Chinese governments will be more open to the media and the world," he said recently.

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