A long way from mandarins to civil servants(2)

Official-public relations

Weibo, China's Twitter-like service, has become a major platform of online expression for many Chinese people as well as officials. Du Shaozhong, former deputy head for the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, was among the first officials to open a Weibo to talk to Web users. He hopes that more officials can abandon their rigid image, and directly communicate with the public.

Still, currently only a few officials have embraced the new technology. In 2023, it may not be rare for an official to post some of his daily work on social media such as microblogs, collect public opinions toward an initiative with the help of the Internet, and interact with Web users on a regular basis.

"The way officials are selected and promoted means that most officials only hold themselves accountable to their superiors instead of the people," Huang Weiping, director of the Contemporary Chinese Politics Research Institute at Shenzhen University, told the Global Times. "If institutional reforms don't take place in this regard, it would be hard to expect any breakthrough."

"10 percent less corruption"

Corruption, one of the public's major complaints about officials, has been referred to by top leaders as a problem that, if left unchecked, could cause the collapse of the Party and the fall of the State.

People have pinned their hopes on the forced disclosure of officials' personal assets to prevent them from getting illicit gains.

Ye was quite optimistic about the idea. "At first, we could have the new civil servants and newly-promoted officials disclose their assets and property every year, and gradually expand it to all officials," he said

Zhou Xiaoyun, an online whistle-blower who has recently managed to take several corrupt officials down, told the Global Times that the online battle could only target a small number of offenders, but vowed to continue the fight.

"If I was to grade China's counter-corruption efforts and results 10 years later, it could only be given 60 percent," said Zhang You, a college graduate working as a village official in Miyun county, Beijing.

Zhang told the Global Times that although the current counter-corruption campaign online is overwhelming, most of the officials exposed are in relatively higher-level positions, while corruption among local officials, especially in rural areas, is equally severe but rarely get much public scrutiny.

Chinese officials will be more disciplined, both in moral conduct and their work, and they will be more approachable than now as the CPC has highlighted a closer relationship with the public, said Yang Guangbin, a professor of politics at the Renmin University of China.

However, while pressure from both the high-level government and widespread public supervision will greatly improve officials' image and their work, corruption and access to privileges will linger on, Yang said. "I might give them 70 percent for their performance then."