There are plenty of tangibles that define the changing image of our country.

Ever-stretching kilometres of fine freeways, mushrooming building sites, post-modern architectural structures, increasingly congested urban streets, and a lot of others which appeared here only on TV and movie screens just a few decades ago.

The intangibles, however, outline a more fundamental process of change.

Earlier this week, the State Council published the new Regulations on Marriage Registration, and the public security authorities announced a new procedure for passport application.

They shared one thing in common - the exclusion of the danwei, the firm one works for, from these procedures.

Up to October 1, when the new marriage registration rule takes effect, Chinese citizens who are employed by any working units have to produce an official marital status certificate issued by their danwei as well as a health certificate by designated hospitals before they can marry. Up to September 1, the day when the new passport rule becomes effective, in order to apply for a passport, a citizen working in the public sector has to first get the approval of his or her danwei.

These revisions, cutting people's ties to their danwei, represent a significant step forward in strengthening people's personal freedom.

The old requirements, effectively turned employees into de facto appendages to their danwei. Facilitating the State's control over people's personal mobility, these danwei requirements constitute public power's infringement upon individual rights.

When the individual's sacrifice for the public power was taken for granted, especially when danwei provided cradle-to-grave welfare guarantees, there was little ground to challenge the public power, through the danwei, on matters involving personal affairs.

But things have changed so much that some of the cornerstones for such controls are gone.

Under the old rules, every working urban resident has a danwei, because not just government and Party offices, but all professional institutions and enterprises were State or collectively-owned.

The flourishing private sector, however, has cultivated a new workforce beyond the danwei framework. Restructuring of the State sectors, including the streamlining of government offices and mass lay-offs from State firms, has left a great number of people without a danwei.

Danwei no longer constitute a binding net that covers all working people. Under such circumstances, retaining the old role for the danwei makes no sense.

On the other hand, as the public become increasingly aware of their legal rights and interests, doubts about legitimacy of their danwei's control over intrinsically personal affairs mount, for those who still happen to have a danwei.

Placing employees' passport applications screening under danwei is another case in point.

Now this has been changed. Excluding the danwei from these personal procedures reconciles an essential but unaddressed conflict between the old practice and the constitutional promise of personal freedom.

Few might have noticed the difference between the old and new names of the marriage registration rules. The old one was called Rules on Marriage Registration and Administration. The conspicuous absence of the word administration in the new name reflects from another angle the retreat of State power from citizens' private lives.

Another noteworthy change in the new regulations is that pre-marriage health examinations will no longer be compulsory. By making what was a legal obligation a matter of personal choice, the modification adds a more humane touch to a rigid work of legislation.

The changes are encouraging because they answer to our time's need for empowering, or returning rights to, the individual and limiting public powers.

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