Governmental Responses to FOI Requests in China

The 15 provincial FOI annul reports show that only a small number of information requests fell into the category of the statutory exemptions. About 10% and 5 % requests were rejected due to the statutory exemptions in Beijing and Shanghai respectively, representing the two largest one among other provinces. Most of requests were refused because of the reason that the information sought did not exist or was not under the possession of the agency.