Chinese authorities announced Monday that they will appoint spokespersons in petition departments from the county level to respond to public concerns.

The State Bureau of Letter and Calls (SBLC) held a training seminar last week for over 120 people including media officers of petition departments in major cities and senior executives of media outlets. 

The seminar marks the establishment of a spokesperson system in petition work, Zhang Enxi, deputy director for the SBLC, told the Nandu Daily.

The petition is an administrative system designed for the public to voice complaints to the authorities. Many petitions filed in China are related to land disputes, social security and healthcare.

Zhang said that authorities usually "performed work without providing information" or "do more while saying less" as they were afraid of conveying the wrong information, becoming public targets or breaking confidentiality. However, it has led to misunderstanding and misinterpretation among the public.

During the seminar, Zhang criticized the "silence" of local petition offices in critical moments by citing a recent fatal incident in Qing'an, Heilongjiang Province, in which a passenger named Xu Chunhe was shot dead by a local police officer at a railway station after he attacked the police.

Media reports said that Xu was identified by security staff as a petitioner and was stopped from getting aboard as they feared that he was going for further petition. However, the People's Daily clarified later that Xu was not a petitioner. 

Zhang claimed that during the incident, the petition office was unreasonably involved, stressing that the authorities should speak out and proactively respond to social concerns.

"It could be seen as a milestone for reforms in the petition system. Previously, authorities adopted an 'ostrich' policy to deal with confrontations and conflicts with the public and triggered controversy. This move could help people know more about their work, the challenges involved and eliminate some misunderstandings," Li Danyang, a professor of public administration at Beihang University, told the Global Times.

However, the petition system should eventually be abolished to build a society under the rule of law, said Li.

"What I care more about is whether the petition departments could truly carry out their functions instead of passing the buck," Wu Hongbing, a Jiangxi-based petitioner, told the Global Times.

Since 2003, Wu has been petitioning for his social security and medical insurance policy as an employee of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which forced many bank employees to resign.

China has been improving the petition system in recent years, including setting up an online petition mechanism in 2013. The public can register their problems on the website of the SBLC and the whole process can be tracked and evaluated.