Arnstein’s ‘ladder of participation’ that has eight levels: manipulation, therapy, informing, consultation, placation, partnership, delegated power and citizen control (Arnstein 1969)
Sometimes it is just for propaganda purpose only or a way to try to obtain some legitimacy for local planning. That is my impression of public participation in urban planning in China.
My book "Public Participation as a Tool for Integrating Local Knowledge Into Spatial Planning" answers this question. Since the book was published in November 2016 it has been downloaded 10,000 times from Springer platform!:)