CHANGSHA, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Ren Yuejun, a villager in central China's Hunan Province, who is better known online as "Undeserved Kindness", has fulfilled his first political ambition by going from voicing his opinions online to becoming a real life political adviser.
As one of China's first "netizen deputies" to attend political advisory sessions, Ren handed in his proposal on village economic development to the Yueyang County Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body to the government, before it closed Saturday.
Ren and his net friend "xwjYunxuan" attended the session as co-opted members of the 11th Yueyang County Committee, CPPCC.
The two were the first "netizen deputies" nominated to the CPPCC.
"The proposal was discussed at the meeting, and is expected to be sent to concerned government authorities for review," said the 46-year-old farmer in an interview with Xinhua on Wednesday.
A netizen "Laoniu" in north China's Henan Province became the first Chinese "netizen deputy" in January 2009, when he was elected to the Luoyang Municipal Committee of the National People's Congress, the legislature.
Ren was inspired by "Laoniu's" success and became an active chatter on rednet.cn, a popular Chinese chat forum opened by the Hunan provincial government.
"In my proposal to the CPPCC, I suggested that every village should focus on developing a 'feature economy'. I first posted the idea at the chat room I chaired at rednet.cn in March 2009," he said.
"I said online that Chetang village should plan and develop a core business related to the area's resources," he explained the "feature economy".
"When I checked the reply messages to my post, I was surprised to find one of them was left by Peng Guofu, secretary of the Yueyang County Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC)," he said.
Peng supported Ren's feature economy idea, and said he would share it with his colleagues.
The official then in January this year endorsed a new idea from Ren that netizens should have a voice in the county's political advisory session.
"China's CPPCC constitution allows local CPPCC committees to nominate people from democratic parties and social groups as deputy members. We can expect to hear more honest voices from the Internet and media, as the county CPPCC committee now includes 'netizen deputies'," said Peng.
He said the two newly nominated "netizen deputies" would serve on the committee for the next three years.
The real name of the other deputy known online as "xwjYunxuan" was Xu Weijun, a grain company employee under the county's food bureau.
He was voted by rednet.cn users as a candidate for the CPPCC deputy membership because of his "political advisory" experience.
Under the net name "xwjYunxuan," he was active in discussing social and economic issues related to Yueyang. One of his posts directly led to a face-lift and renaming of a public square covered with weeds.
Both Ren and Xu said they were not always able to represent the views of all netizens, but they wanted to do the best they could.
"There are a lot of things that netizens are concerned with in life and I hope we can speak for most them," said Ren.
"For example, in the rural area of Yueyang, pig raising causes pollution and illness, and the lack of irrigation facilities hinders farming. These topics are all worth discussing at CPPCC sessions. But I still think my proposal of 'one village, one feature economy' should be discussed first," he said.
He explained that poor villages need a core business to help people shake off poverty. When farmers get rich, they would not be so dependent on government funds.
