How a foreigner's complaint reveals 'people's city' warmth

On a night cruise along Beijing's Grand Canal, foreign resident Marie enjoyed a light show and water performance, unaware that the experience began with a small problem she encountered weeks earlier. Marie, who has lived in Beijing for years, had tried to register for a trial run of "Yun Shang Xing" water performance on the Grand Canal in Tongzhou District. But the registration system only accepted Chinese mainland identity cards, leaving her unable to register with her passport. She turned to Beijing's dedicated 12345 online channel for foreign residents, suggesting that organizers consider the needs of foreign residents when planning public activities so they could enjoy city services on equal footing. The response was swift. The Tongzhou branch of the 12345 service center coordinated with the event operator, and within one business day, the system was upgraded to accept passports and other foreign identity documents. Staff also contacted Marie, offered to register her manually and invited her to experience the performance free of charge. "I appreciate the prompt response to my suggestion," Marie said, calling the responsiveness of Beijing government services one of the factors that makes the capital attractive to foreigners. Her experience offers a glimpse into China's "people's city" concept – a governance approach that puts people's needs at the center and seeks to make urban services more inclusive and responsive. What lies behind the hotline? For Marie, the problem was solved when the registration system was updated. But if the same problem could affect other foreign residents, fixing the system could also help avoid similar problems in the future. That points to a broader role for Beijing's 12345 service: beyond responding to individual complaints, the platform generates a large pool of data that can be used to improve urban governance. Ma Liang, a professor at the School of Government under Peking University, said Beijing's hotline has received more than 200 million complaints and requests over the past seven years, generating a valuable dataset for government decision-making. The data can help governments identify which issues should be prioritized, spot patterns across different periods, locations and sectors, and develop systematic solutions rather than addressing similar problems case by case, Ma said....