II. Oversight Work
The power of oversight is another important duty and power granted to the NPC and its Standing Committee by the Constitution and other laws. The Standing Committee of the Tenth NPC from the beginning of its term adopted the approach of concentrating on core issues, identifying priorities and seeking substantive results in its oversight work and constantly deepened its understanding of the oversight work of the NPC. As a result, the Standing Committee established effective work mechanisms and methods, produced results that pleased the Party and the people and provided a practical foundation for the formulation and implementation of the Law on Oversight. Over the past five years the Standing Committee listened to and deliberated 41 special work reports and 15 final accounts, auditing reports and plan implementation reports from the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. The vice chairpersons of the Standing Committee organized 25 enforcement inspection teams to survey implementation of 22 laws. The Standing Committee received over 470,000 letters from the public and entertained 210,000 visits from members of the public.
1. We identified oversight priorities. The oversight work of the NPC touches on many areas, so an important condition for achieving more substantive results is to closely tie it to the work of the Party and the state and make it closely correspond to the most common demands of the people. For this reason, we identified the priorities for oversight in accordance with the strategic arrangements that the Party and the government made for work following the Sixteenth National Congress, the comments and suggestions of deputies, and the issues of most concern to the public. We selected prominent issues that can be resolved through hard work as the breakthrough points, then used these individual cases to expand results to the problems at large. We constantly worked to enhance the scope of oversight to make it more thorough and more effective.
The Standing Committee tightened its oversight of economic work such as the implementation of budgets, the implementation of plans for national economic and social development, and macroeconomic regulation. At the same time, the Standing Committee mainly worked on oversight in the following five main areas: 1) solving serious problems related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, centering efforts on promoting the building of a new socialist countryside; 2) working to achieve goals for energy conservation and emissions reduction, centering on efforts to build a society that is resource-conserving and environmentally friendly; 3) improving the country's capacity for independent innovation, centering on efforts to build an innovative country; 4) addressing the problems of most concern to the people, centering on efforts to promote fairness in the judicial system; and 5) solving problems of great concern to the public, centering on efforts to build a harmonious socialist society.
The Standing Committee always attached great importance to solving the problems affecting agriculture, rural areas and farmers. Three years in a row, beginning in 2003, the Standing Committee identified grain security and protection of farmland as the breakthrough points for improving conditions for agriculture, rural areas and farmers to address the drastic reduction in the area sown to grain and the excessive appropriation of arable land for nonagricultural purposes. After 2006, the focus of oversight for efforts to solve the problems affecting agriculture, rural areas and farmers was once again shifted to comprehensive efforts to build a new socialist countryside in accordance with the strategic arrangements of the central authorities. During the past five years, the Standing Committee organized four campaigns to investigate enforcement of the law and heard four work reports. Thanks to the concerted efforts of all localities and quarters, China's grain production has steadily risen four years in a row, rural per capita net income has risen from 2,622 yuan in 2003 to 4,140 yuan in 2007, rural infrastructure and the living conditions of rural residents have steadily improved, and real progress is being made in building a new socialist countryside.
Another constant focus of the oversight work of the Standing Committee is the problems affecting resources and the environment. For several years in a row we have identified attainment of the goals for energy conservation and emissions reduction as the key to overseeing work in the area of resources and the environment. We concentrated on improving oversight of energy conservation and the prevention and control of water and air pollution and solid waste pollution, urged concerned parties to truly pay close attention to problems affecting resources and the environment and promoted realization of the goals for energy conservation and emissions reduction contained in the Outline of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development. We made strengthening the country's capacity for independent innovation the focus of efforts to make China an innovative country in order to address the relatively small contribution of advances in science and technology to economic growth, excessive dependence on foreign technology and inadequate investment in scientific research. We called on concerned parties to fully implement the guiding principles set out at the National Conference on Science and Technology and the Outline of the National Program for Long- and Medium-term Scientific and Technological Development.
The investigation of enforcement of the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy and the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Returned Overseas Chinese and Their Relatives was the first such investigation since these two laws were implemented. We put the focus of the investigation of the enforcement of the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy on promoting economic and social development in ethnic minority areas and called on concerned parties to waste no time in formulating and improving supporting regulations and policies to truly increase assistance for ethnic minority areas and ethnic minorities, especially ethnic minorities with small populations. We put the focus of the investigation of enforcement of the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Returned Overseas Chinese and Their Relatives on improving the poor living and working conditions of the 300,000 employees of overseas Chinese farms and suggested the approach of solving this longstanding problem in stages, effectively promoting the reform and development of these farms.
It should be pointed out here that the Standing Committee promptly adjusted its oversight plan in response to the sudden outbreak of SARS and highly pathogenic avian influenza in 2003 and 2004 respectively. We listened to and deliberated special work reports from the State Council, investigated the implementation of the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, the Law on the Prevention of Animal Diseases and the Law on the Prevention and Control of Solid Waste Pollution, and called on concerned parties to set up and put into operation a contingency mechanism for responding to public health emergencies.