Editorials
The whip gets longer ...
(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-02 06:34
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Editor's note: The CPC has made its new move to regulate the procedures of selecting and appointing officials. It is a reassuring sign of the CPC's willingness and efforts to discipline itself.
Anxious to regulate its ranks, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has made another strong move against misconduct in public institutions.
In its latest document regarding the appointment and regulation of officials, public servants removed from their positions because of disciplinary action shall not be promoted within one year. Those who resign or are ordered to resign, or have received disciplinary dismissals, shall not be appointed to a leadership position equivalent to their original posts within one year; they will also not be promoted within two years.
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The changes are timely since it is the opinion of many that positions of power continue to be traded like commodities.
The new decrees are in a sense fence-mending measures. They will at least serve two goals: To reiterate, to system insiders and the general public, the CPC's resolve for self-regulation; and to introduce order into the selection and appointment of public officials. Both are essential for maintaining public confidence in the CPC's willingness and efforts to discipline itself.
The fact that these decrees were made and put into effect is a reassuring sign. Yet we are at the same time curious about how far these new rules can go. Many preceding measures have faded out from public memory because they were ineffective in real-world situations.
These new rules, too, have their issues. The above-mentioned article, for instance, can be read as exceedingly lenient toward officials whose performances or capabilities are in doubt.
Everything will return to normal for inadequate officials after one or two years? We don't believe that this is the message that the CPC intended to send.
(China Daily 04/02/2010 page8)
