Beijing's experience in promptly addressing public complaints offers valuable lessons for urban governance, according to international participants at the 2026 Beijing Forum on Swift Response to Public Complaints, which opened on Monday.
The two-day event, themed "Digital Intelligence Era and People's City," drew more than 3,200 participants from over 70 countries and regions. This year's edition also unveiled a series of research outcomes on urban governance, ranging from theoretical studies of the reform itself to an evaluation of city hotline services around the world and case studies of governance innovation.
The "swift response to public complaints" initiative was launched in 2019 in Beijing, home to more than 20 million residents, to address public concerns promptly and resolve everyday challenges efficiently. The city has since consolidated more than 60 hotline services into a single number, 12345, which now serves as the main channel for residents to report problems.
Official data shows the Chinese capital has handled about 200 million public appeals in just over seven years, with resolution and satisfaction rates both exceeding 97 percent.
Zeynep Neyza Akcabay, deputy secretary general of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, said what impressed her most was the hotline's use of data analysis to anticipate and prevent problems before they arise.
"In Istanbul, we're a very crowded city with 16 million people. SoI'm thinking there is not a very big difference between the working systems. But as far as I see from 12345 hotline, they have more data analysis on the problem of solving complaints so that they can project the possible complaints and possible problems so that is a very good thing to prevent those kinds of problems can occur in future time. That may be the main difference. We have to work hard in Istanbul on analyze of the data," she said.
Ondrej Dostal, a Czech member of the European Parliament, said the forum gave European policymakers a firsthand insight into China's approach to handling public grievances.
"The forum on solving complaints is a great educative tool for us Europeans [on] how to learn to solve the complaints of people quickly and how to rebuild trust between the citizens and politicians and government officials. And I was really pleased to hear the experience of the hotline 12345 but also the experience from other countries," said Dostal.
Dostal further noted that while China and European countries have different philosophical and cultural foundations, both share the same goal of delivering efficient, high-quality public services to their citizens.
"We are based on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, which is autonomy based, which puts the autonomy of a person to the top, and China is a Confucian culture, which is a bit different, more collectivist, less individualist. And the solutions which are being developed in China are therefore slightly different from Europe. But even knowing these differences, it is very interesting for a European to learn from what is similar in China. And it is a general wish of the people to have effective government, good healthcare and fast administration," said Dostal.
Beijing's swift response to public complaints offers lessons for cities worldwide: forum participants
