Hong Kong Bauhinia Magazine:

The public is both an audience and a participant in enhancing public awareness of laws on the internet. How can we fully mobilize the public to participate in raising public awareness of the law? Thank you.

Wang Xiaoguang:

Thank you for your question. This is a very good question. We know that China has the largest number of internet users in the world. Raising public awareness of the law requires a people-centered approach. Wherever the people are, promoting public awareness of the law must be followed up, and the work of increasing legal awareness must be extended. The internet has become the main battlefield for promoting legal awareness and has also become the largest growth area for raising legal awareness. Since the eighth five-year plan for increasing public knowledge of the law, we have firmly put the people at the center of our work of law popularization, paid more attention to using cases to explain the law around issues that the people are concerned about, and attached more importance to harnessing the advantages of online legal education, such as its broad-based participation, strong interaction, immediacy, and better services. The one-way publicity has been transformed into interactive, service-oriented, and scene-based communication. The public is no longer just a passive audience, but rather active participants, supporters, and advocates. We have realized that the vast potential for promoting legal awareness lies wthin the people and in cyberspace. Here, I will give two examples.

The first example is the MOJ's WeChat account called "China Law Popularization," which organizes special quizzes on China's Constitution and the Civil Code during important periods such as the Constitution Publicity Week and the Civil Code Publicity Month every year. In 2022, more than 1.7 billion entries were received. The WeChat account interacted with netizens and organized activities such as selecting selected comments from netizens, "My Offer for Law Popularization," and red envelopes for answering questions during the Spring Festival. Improving public participation and experiences increases people's satisfaction and happiness. Currently, the WeChat account is organizing a quiz about the Criminal Law, and all interested friends are welcome to participate.

The second example is that the MOJ and the National Office for Law Popularization have, in conjunction with the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee and the CAC have held legal-themed comic and micro-video collection and promotion activites for 18 sessions. The event has widely motivated internet users to innovate and collect their works online, of which the award-winning ones are exhibited and broadcast online. These works, created by internet users, are in turn used to educate them, which is coming from the public and going back to them. I think this vividly embodies the online mass line of public legal education for a new era. Thank you.