Take people's feelings into account to foster good reception for reforms

THE MINISTRY OF Civil Affairs, together with eight other ministries, has issued new guidelines on burials. One article encourages family members to share tombs in order to save space. This has met fierce opposition online. The authorities need more transparency in their decision-making process, instead of simply publishing such policies without taking into account ordinary people's feelings and interests, said the Chinese edition of Global Times on Thursday:

The government has been promoting burial reform since the 1950s, when people were even more conservative. Yet considerable achievements have been made in the past several decades because political forces were used to push through the changes and society was successfully mobilized to support them.

It is hard to do that today because our social conditions have fundamentally changed. Therefore, government departments must be creative when trying to change people's behavior and attitudes toward something. They must learn to mobilize social forces that are in favor of their decisions.