Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, June 20, 2008

Local officials in China

Edward Cody, writing in the Washington Post offers more images of local officials in China. This example makes the actions of local officials in the Sichuan earthquake areas seem even more remarkable.

China's Local Leaders Hold Absolute Power

"Despite three decades of widely heralded economic reforms, the party has clung tenaciously to its Leninist-inspired monopoly on politics. As a result, most of China's 1.3 billion people still live under the thumb of local party secretaries who are responsible only to the higher-level party officials who appoint them...

"[T]he top-down Communist system still insists on concentrating power in the hands of party functionaries who manage local politics and finances beyond challenge from the law...

"With President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao providing strenuous leadership from the top, the party apparatus pushed hard to mobilize help in quake-hit zones as soon as the scale of the catastrophe became clear. Participation was broad, but it was all under the guidance of party officials..."




Chinese Officials Punished, Promoted for Actions After Quake

"The Chinese Communist Party has disciplined 28 officials and promoted 50 as a result of their performances during rescue operations after the devastating May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province, the party said Tuesday.

"The personnel changes, including the firing of 15 officials for "doing nothing" during the catastrophe, represented the first public accounting of government actions after a prominent warning by a senior party leader that officials' careers would depend on how well they responded to the crisis. In a sign the party intended the decisions to serve as examples, they were reported prominently in the party's Sichuan Daily newspaper and relayed nationwide by the official New China News Agency..."




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