Keeping extravagance within the cage of regulations

Resisting hedonism and extravagance should be a strict regulation and be accompanied with a more extensive public supervision.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, made the marks during a speech at a plenary meeting of the CPC's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on Jan. 22, 2013, Xi said that officials should run all undertakings industrially and thriftily, stand rock firm against lavishness, hedonism and extravagance, vigorously promote the Chinese traditional virtue of thrift and the ideas that saving is glorious and waste is shameful, and try our best to make practicing strict economy and combating waste become a fairly common practice.

Xi also added that the government should strengthen the restriction and supervision of power to ensure officials exercise their power within the cage of regulations with a disciplinary mechanism of fearing to corrupt, a defensive mechanism of no ways to corrupt and a safeguard mechanism of being hard to corrupt.

Several days ago, Xi left Bejing for Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan and Guangzhou with no closing down roads, no cleaning up and no red carpet; also he lived in the plain hotels with common standard rooms and ate buffet dinner, and then his travelling to Fuping made the "four dishes and one soup" become an international buzzword. In a word, since the implementation of the "eight-point", being thrifty is not a slogan any more, but a real practice.

At the same time, the public notice that thriftiness is also reflected at the two sessions of local governments. Wang Anshun, the acting mayor of Beijing, pointed out in his work report of Bejing Municipal Government that the government should reduce the usage of the "three founds" and save money to do more things to improve people's livelihood. And there were not flowers around the meeting place, not liquor at dinner tables, and not fruits for representatives during the two sessions in this year.

It is refreshing for the public to see the central and local governments make efforts to promote thrift. There are still a large number of extremely poor villages such as Fuping and Luotuowan in China, and the country's Gini coefficient reached as high as 0.474 last year. Even if the economy permits, officials should still strictly practice thrift and combat waste. Xi's call for thrift is not only in line with people's expectations, but also meets the basic requirements of modern political ethics. Government officials at all levels have no reason not to set a good example in practicing thrift.

Lack of effective supervision and regulation is the root cause of rampant corruption and frequent recreational activities using public funds. In order to promote thrift and combat waste, the government should improve various systems to put power in cage.

For example, it should improve the budget system, properly manage public funds, accelerate disclosing budget information to the public, and accept public supervision.

In short, the government should adhere to thrift, and make full use of strict systems and public supervision to deter officials from extravagant spending.