Cadres in Hubei: The Right Stuff(3)

In order to make accepted officials quickly fill their roles and develop self-confidence, they will enter a ten-day training program. They can also opt to remain at their previous posts for a certain period of time.

Outside of the recruitment drive, Hubei has already chosen 4,000 outstanding college graduates to be sent to do grass-roots work. Among them, over 30 have been promoted to senior positions. This year, Hubei plans to recruit 1,115 graduates-- 821 with bachelors, and 294 with masters degrees doctorates.

Hubei will apparently have 28,671 administrative districts. With four cadres going to the larger villages and three going to smaller ones, the whole province will require 100,000 new cadres-- among whom 50,000 were previous party branch heads and village leaders.

"The ratio of experienced cadres to students is a little low," says Guan, who believes that the students have excellent theoretical backgrounds, but when placed in new environments among constituents they will have a challenging road ahead of them.

Ma City's Songbu town secretary Li Jinghao agrees, saying that experienced cadres have learned much through their time in rural areas, and thus have a more thorough understanding of their constituents and will be more able to solve them. Li also believes that some of these students will try to exploit their positions as springboards, which will have a negative effect on the morale of the cadres as a whole.

"We hope that this [new system] consolidates grass-roots political power... and that, in the long term, the process will become institutionalized," says Li.