In China, the quality and enthusiasm of leading cadres is an extremely important factor affecting China's development. Leading cadres have the power to influence resource allocation, and can determine policy development and direction; their impact on local economic and social development is sometimes quite decisive.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, anti-corruption works have been carried on by the Chinese central government, and won the trust of the people. In the process, the cadres have experienced major changes. The data from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection shows that as of the end of August 2017, China had investigated and dealt with 184,000 mental cases in violation of the eight central regulations, and 250,000 cadre party members were dealt with, while 136,000 cadres were taken disciplinary actions, and that includes 20 provincial and ministerial cadres. According to the report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate in March 2018, since the 18th National Congress, on the officials of higher positions, the national procuratorial entities have filed investigations against 120 former cadres at or above the provincial level and above, and handled 2,405 officials at the bureau level, while 15,234 county-level officials were dealt with. On the anti-corruption campaign against the grassroots level officials, 62,715 people were investigated.
The rebuilding of cadres after the anti-corruption campaign is comparable to "reconstruction" after disaster. Such "reconstruction" of the cadres consists of two aspects; the first is the integration and utilization of the existing cadre team; as the corrupt officials are a minority, the existing cadre team is still the key pillar. The second is to supplement and promote the new cadre team. The central government has repeatedly emphasizes on supplementing and promoting outstanding young cadres, providing "fresh blood" and forming new force. If the issue of cadre cultivation is not resolved, China might face the problem of discontinuation of cadres in the future.
It is worth noting that under the new situation and requirements, the current cadre team has encountered some new problems and changes in their specific work. If these issues are not taken seriously, it will significantly affect how the cadre team plays its role; it will even affect the normal operation of the economy and society.
On the basis of many field investigations and communications with local cadres, the typical problems encountered by the current cadre team at work can be attributed to fewer resources, inadequate trust, smaller space, and lesser interests, as well as greater responsibility, more concerns, and more formality. This is further elaborated below:
Fewer resources: Resources are required when the government wishes to undertake any action. In the past, there were more resources available, such as financial, monetary, land, policy, and social resources; many of these resources can be used flexibly. Now that the situation has changed, the management has been tightened and the available resources have been reduced. Since the mechanisms and processes have not been reformed accordingly, the demand for resources has not been lessened, which has caused the shortage of resources.
Inadequate trust: Government work requires the trust between superiors and subordinates, between peers, between the government and the businesses, and between officials and the public. Now, the trust between the government and the market and society has not increased significantly; instead the trust between government departments has decreased significantly, and the situation of mutual constraint has increased. Some officials revealed that there have been increasing mutual monitoring and undermining.
Smaller space: In the past, there was flexibility and space in doing things. Even if there were policy restrictions, all parties could work to expand some space. As long as it was not illegal, things would get to be done in the end; there was result and efficiency. Nowadays, the requirements for process compliance have become quite strict, which makes the space for doing things greatly reduced, and things are harder to be done. Some officials from the business department said that now that when a single person is doing things, five or six others would be waiting for that person to make mistakes. This situation affects the mentality of the cadre team.
Lesser interests: Being an official should not be centered on interests, nor seek personal gain through corruption. However, to do the job well, the officials would need a certain amount of normal benefits. For example, incentives for overtime work, and compensation for loss of personal interests at work are necessary to motivate the cadres. Yet, some current practices are over-adjustment; the actual income of the cadres is not high, and now not only there is not much of incentives sometimes the cadres might even need to fork out their own money to do the works, this will not be bode well for the long-term stability of the cadre team.
Greater responsibility: Some cadres have pointed out that the responsibility now is greater than in the past. In the past, the work pressure came from whether the goal can be achieved; now, in addition to doing their works, there is a lot of pressure from the compliance of the procedures and whether the process is correct. Since the existing work procedures and policy are insufficient, it is impossible to achieve the goal without adhering to the procedures. However, independent supervision departments often disregard these; rather than looking at the results, they only to see whether the works are in compliance with the procedures and any violation of the procedures must be corrected. It is normal for many places to deal with such violations now. In some places, the government departments even have to be assigned to "claim" the punishments.
More concerns:The emergence of the above-mentioned phenomenon has led to the current cadre team's many concerns at work, and many do not dare to conduct reform and innovation. The mentality of "doing more means having more mistakes, doing less means lesser mistakes, not doing anything means not making mistakes" is gradually becoming more common. If the mechanism is not adjusted, this would affect the Communist Party's spirit. Some officials told Anbound researchers that in the past everyone was vying to work in the National Development and Reform Commission, or in finance, economic, business departments, or in the development zones. These have all become high-risk units; instead now everyone is vying to go to the trade union, veteran cadres, women's federations, discipline inspection and other departments. The situation has been increased and the efficiency of government work is decreasing.
More formality: Formalism has increased in the current Chinese government's work has increased formalism. The forms and documents have continued to increase the burdens of the cadres, where they have to send documents, attend meetings, fill out forms, and cope with assessments; these have become the daily main work of many grassroots cadres. Actual works like grassroots survey, researching on problems, and solving practical problems are getting less and less. Technology like online messengers and mobile internet has not improved work efficiency, but instead it has increased more formality; this is especially obvious in the field of poverty alleviation.
Most of the officials we contacted still want to do their work well, yet the problems mentioned above are causing obstacles in their works, and demotivating them. Some local cadres said that the central authorities do not necessarily understand these situations. Local cadres are worried that if this situation continues, it would be hard for the governments of all levels in China to execute the central government's policies.
Final analysis conclusion:
After carrying out the anti-corruption campaign, there should have been a situation in which deepening reforms and promoting high-quality development in China, yet the various mechanism problems existing in the government system are dragging down the work of the Chinese government. Many officials have now called for creating a normal working environment for the cadres. To achieve this, China should rely on deepening reforms, which include internal reforms and opening up to the outside world.
