Influencers from Silk Road Countries Turn the Spotlight on Beijing's Innovative Megacity Governance and Tell Real and Colorful Stories of Beijing to the World

On August 23, the influencers from Silk Road Countries took part in the 2023 Silk Road Rediscovery Tour of Beijing visited Beijing Municipal Government Service Center, 12345 Beijing Citizen Hotline Service Center, Chaowai Sub-district Party Masses Service Center and Liangma River International Style Waterfront. Their on-site experience allowed them to look closely at the innovative pattern of megacity governance and show the true color of Beijing to the world.

Nie Qingkai, Division Director of Approval Administration Department of Beijing Municipal Government Service Center guided the 11 influencers from ten countries including Austria, Serbia and Romania on their visit to the service center. They saw the center's zone of extended service hours, a special counter for enterprise bankruptcy inquiry, a special zone of "joint application of two permits" and a loan service center. He introduced the center's operation overview and the efforts of Beijing Municipality on benefiting and facilitating the people.

Then the influencers learned about the Official International Web Portal of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality. They listened carefully to the narrator's explanation of the six major parts of "Investing, Working, Studying, Living, Travelling and Consuming" in Beijing, which are presently available in eight languages, i.e. English, Korean, Japanese, German, French, Russian, Spanish and Arabic. They were deeply impressed and expressed the wish to see more language versions.

Ioan Budura (Luo Yang in Chinese), former Editor-in-Chief of the Department of Culture, Radio Romania and famous sinologist, noted that although his country has similar websites, those websites use preset automatic replies for user service and cannot answer practical questions. The messages users leave on the Official International Web Portal of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality are answered by real staff, so they can get answers to the specific questions, which is highly user-friendly and efficient.

They then paid a visit to 12345 Beijing Citizen Hotline Service Center. The influencers learned about the daily work of the hotline service and acted as the operators to answer calls.

Ali Abdullah H. Alshammari, Editorial Director of the News Channel of Saudi Broadcasting Authority answers a call of 12345 Beijing Citizen Hotline Service.

Megacity governance is anything but easy. The citizen hotline service provides immediate information for urban governance that conveys public opinions and concerns. The hotline service and the "swift response to public complaints" mechanism solve people's immediate concerns and problems. The calls of people can be heard while the reasonable needs are met.

Achieford Mhondera, lecturer of the University of Zimbabwe and a columnist learns calligraphy.

Later on that day, the influencers visited the Chaowai Sub-district Party Masses Service Center to watch a rehearsal of square dance, and the Hongzhi Study to learn calligraphy and paper cutting. They also visited the Liangma River International Style Waterfront, melting themselves into colorful and attractive nightlife in Beijing.