During this year’s annual full sessions of the National People’s Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, mobile phones have played a role in promoting “democracy with Chinese characteristics,” reports Xinhuanet.

“For several consecutive days, we were seeing a dozen mobile phone messages coming in every second through our platform,” said Ms. Xu, a staff with China Mobile who asked to be identified only by her surname. “Surprisingly, all the questions were addressed to Premier Wen Jiabao.”

By Tuesday, a campaign called “Ask the Premier,” jointly launched by Xinhuanet.com and China Mobile for their 100 million plus mobile phone users, had collected over 250,000 short messages, a substantial portion of which were from blue-collars, farmers, and students.

The Chinese government encourages grass-root citizens to “orderly participate in politics” to expand democracy, according to Beijing-based political observer. “