Taxpayers' concerns

It surely speaks volumes about China's progress on open and democratic lawmaking that more than 200,000 opinions - a record - were offered by the public on proposed revisions to the country's law on levying personal income tax.

Since the National People's Congress Standing Committee, the top legislature, publicized the amendment of the Personal Income Tax Law, the draft law has attracted more opinions from the public than all of the previous 20 laws put forward for public opinion since 2009.

Such an advancement in participative legislation can be partly credited to the increasingly wider access to the Internet and the growing awareness of it as a platform for their concerns among Chinese people.