Editorial, Cover

Issue No. 541, Oct 24, 2011

Translated by Song Chunling

Original article: [Chinese]

What’s the hardest thing for today’s youth to accept? Having to compete with the children of officials  (官二代) for jobs or with children of the rich (富二代) for a date.

Those two gripes are different, though. Finding a partner is personal and no one else can be blamed for the outcome, but the appointment of public officials based on merit is at the core of social equality and the accountability of local governments.

Of course, we can’t just condemn all the children of officials who now have jobs in government. As Chinese tradition says, the excellent should be promoted even when they’re from families of officials. If there was a fair and transparent selection process, no one would oppose the promotion of these people on the basis of their talents and experience.

However, this isn’t how it works at the moment. In recent years, hundreds of young men have been appointed as county heads, bureau vice presidents and university vice presidents. Not all of these appointees achieved their position through their parents’ political influence, at least not according to the media, but these young men don’t need to rely on private deals between their fathers, there are public policies in place that help them, in Wenzhou for example, where a widely-report exam scandal revealed preferential treatment for the children of cadres.

An even more worrying trend is the appearance of dynasties (世袭), where an official helps the career not just of his own child, but also of his entire extended family. This process is described by Peking University academic Feng Junqi (冯军旗) in his doctorate, which looks at a“political family” in Zhongxian County（中县干部）whose 1,000 leaders are connected by ties of blood and marriage. There are 21 “big political families” and 140 “small political families” in this small country. “You can hardly find an isolated political family,” he writes.

Feng’s thesis is based on on-the-spot investigations during a temporary posting. The political family in Zhongxian is not an isolated case. Widespread nepotism has discouraged talented people from seeking jobs in government – people assume that you either come from a political family or you depend on one, and that appointments are based on connections rather than skills.

The consequences are even worse. Officials who owe their appointment to “political families” will serve the interests of their sponsors rather than the public.

In these circumstances, the principle of “public supervision” (社会监督) is empty, and even absurd. All supervision within the government is in the interest of “political families” - corruption is inevitable, and whole families or even several “families” are involved, as was the case with Zhang Zhi‘an (张志安), the “White House Party Boss” from Fuyang (阜阳) in Anhui province.

In some places, these parasitic political relations are destroying the hard-won progress with local-level democracy. Direct election of village-level governments, greater openness in government affairs and democratic approaches at county-level are all designed to improve supervision of public power and are key to making government credible in a society full of tensions.

Families with a monopoly on public power are the natural enemy of these moves towards a more democratic system. We should expand the involvement of the public and the direct election of public servants, so that we can prevent such families from abusing public power. Only when we respect the principle that “power is from people” will all officials understand that “power is for the people”.