Chinese and international experts have highlighted the role of Beijing's "12345" citizen service hotline in building trust and transparency, saying the service ensures people's demands are heard and properly addressed while pushing the municipal government to improve governance.
Speaking after the screening of the documentary "Hotline Beijing 2" on Sunday, the experts said the city's approach offers lessons for urban governance around the world. The screening, attended by more than 400 people, came ahead of the 2026 Beijing Forum on Swift Response to Public Complaints, which runs Monday and Tuesday in the Chinese capital.
The new documentary, a sequel to the award-winning "Hotline Beijing" that was released in 2024 and appeared at the Cannes Film Festival, presents several authentic urban governance stories through on-site footage and interviews.
It offers an up close look at how Beijing' innovative "Swift Response to Public Complaints" mechanism responds to public needs, including the city’s "12345" citizen telephone hotline which was launched back in 2019 and has handled some 200 million requests in that time.
The documentary also provides insights into how Beijing’s experience in urban governance could be replicated elsewhere around the world.
On the prospect of exporting Beijing's hotline model, Paolo Ciani, a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, said his country, where different telephone numbers serve different public services, has much to learn from the city's unified approach.
"In Italy [there] exist different systems of the telephone number, and it's important to implement in Italy also a system similar, as it's very important for this town, but for every town in the world," said Ciani.
For Gabriel Puron-Cid, a visiting professor at the University of Victoria in Canada, what stood out was the sheer scale of the project and its commitment to putting people at the center of technology.
"I think the size of the project, the commitment and leadership is outstanding. Another important thing that I can see is humanizing the technology, putting the people in the center, and transparency and accountability, taking those values seriously," said Puron-Cid.
Mei Ciqi, a professor at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, said policies must be directly related to the people, and that real demand must come from the people.
"This system is mostly a problem-solving system, but nowadays you can see it's a system of policy formulation. Usually like this minority issue, it's really hard to solve in any country. But eventually, because of this 12345 system, we eventually can come up with a very effective policy formulation system. So you can see the demand from this very small group can eventually end up with a big policy change," he said.
On the question of public trust, Ran Bing, a professor of public administration at the School of Public Affairs at Penn State Harrisburg, said the hotline's record of hearing and resolving complaints would earn the Beijing municipal government high marks from its residents.
"The U.S. regularly surveys how much Americans trust their government, and most Americans have little trust in it. I haven't surveyed Beijing residents myself. But watching this film, I believe many would say yes if asked whether they trust the Beijing municipal government, especially after their experiences with the 12345 hotline. Why? First, they feel heard. Second, their legitimate concerns are properly addressed. Third, they can see the government learning from these cases, improving its systems, and doing better. That progress is what builds trust. I haven't asked Beijing residents directly, but I believe their trust would be very high," said Ran.
Beijing's citizen service hotline builds trust, transparency: experts
