Conference preparations to decrease traffic jams

Zhao Yixiong, who lives next to the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, is happy that he doesn't have to get up early to avoid traffic controls set up for foreign leaders during the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

According to the Foreign Ministry, some African leaders and foreign ministers attending the forum on Thursday and Friday have arranged to live in the same hotel where preparatory meetings for the forum are taking place, so there are not as many traffic controls as usual.

"The purpose of this arrangement is to have less traffic control so as not to interrupt public transportation in Beijing," said Lu Shaye, director-general of the department of African affairs of the Foreign Ministry, one of the forum organizers.

Organizers of international conferences usually set public traffic control to guarantee that visiting foreign leaders can arrive at their meetings safely and on time, but such arrangements may make local public traffic inconvenient and tardy, which sometimes angers commuters.

As the capital of China, Beijing hosts many high-ranking international conferences, but also faces more traffic problems at the same time with an increasing number of private cars.

"It is more convenient for me to have less traffic control," said Zhao.

"Since the street where I live is next to the State guesthouse, I had to get up earlier or go by a roundabout way to avoid the motorcades of foreign leaders. A detour usually takes more time, which sometimes makes me late for work."

Jiang Bin, a mother of a 13-year-old girl, said she and her daughter will check information on traffic controls on the website of the traffic management authorities in Beijing every day. Chang'an Avenue, with the most traffic controls in Beijing, is a road her daughter must take to get to school.

Beijing traffic-management authorities often set traffic control in Chang'an Avenue because the Great Hall of the People, which is usually the site of high-ranking meetings by national leaders, is located along it.

"The arrangement this time is really news for us, and it is very thoughtful for us Beijing residents. I hope there will be less traffic control in the future," Jiang said.

"The arrangement shows the Foreign Ministry has attached more importance to the local people and their daily life," said Li Yonghui, executive director of the Center for Public Diplomacy Studies with the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

"The Foreign Ministry has a saying of 'doing the diplomatic work for the people', and the arrangement exactly reflects that concept," he said.

Li said the arrangement also benefits the representatives since they don't have to take transportation from the hotel to the meeting place.

During the Beijing summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in early June, a traffic control was postponed for more than half an hour under the suggestion from the ministry, so that students who were taking the college entrance examination could arrive at their exam rooms on time.

According to Lu, the ministry will consider arranging to have visiting foreign leaders stay and have their meetings in the same place, and take similar measures to ease public traffic, when the ministry organizes international conferences in the future.

zhouwa@chinadaily.com.cn