SPEECH AT A SHANGHAI CONFERENCE ON OVERSIGHT WORK
FEBRUARY 20, 1989
The city government must continue to focus on the integrity and efficiency of government agencies, as this is a major issue that affects the big picture. The people are very concerned about clean and efficient government. Whether or not work in Shanghai is done well will depend on whether or not our cadres are capable, and in judging whether or not our cadres are capable, the people will look to see if they are upright and efficient. Therefore we need to have an accurate assessment of the state of integrity among our cadres.
Assessing the Integrity of Our Cadres
The vast majority of our cadres are clean, law-abiding, conscientious, and down to earth in their work—that is the mainstream, particularly after the city government issued its eight rules for improving government behavior1 last year. It concentrated on 506 officials at the bureau level and above, focusing intensely on integrity, and the situation improved—this is the positive side. However, some among the ranks of our cadres are not so clean, are not responsible in their work, only act like officials but don’t do things for the people—these sorts of things must not be overlooked. Signs of corruption and bribe-taking have also appeared among some section and bureau-level cadres, and their acceptance of bribes of tens of thousands of yuan is not unheard of. The situation among rural cadres is of particular concern.
Township and village enterprises (TVEs) are currently developing very rapidly. Because we are becoming an externally oriented economy, contacts with the outside are increasing. If cadres do not measure up, they will be easily corrupted. There are quite a few cases of cadres infringing on the people’s interests, which is indicative of such a tendency. I have received a considerable number of letters complaining about rural cadres, some of whom reportedly use the people’s labor and the state’s materials to build houses for themselves, while some buy things without paying and treat TVEs as their own slush funds. Such activities are now quite common. Some cadres think it doesn’t matter, that they can hold their hands out to the people and to TVEs, that they can take money from Hong Kong and Macau businessmen to build houses for themselves or for their own enjoyment. Why is the haphazard building of houses, wining and dining and gambling so serious in rural areas? Some of our county cadres are taking the lead and setting very bad examples. That’s why it won’t do if we don’t take action against some cadres, put a halt to this tendency, and clarify concepts of right and wrong.
Party members and leading cadres cannot do this sort of thing. We are servants of the people, we should clearly separate what is public and what is private, we should be absolutely untainted, and have “nothing up our sleeves”!2 If you keep taking public goods for your own use, how can the people support you? Would anyone respond to your calls? That’s why we must make strict demands of district and county cadres. We must adhere firmly to our principles and must not waver.
We must handle these matters strictly and not be afraid to overdo it slightly. This is not to say that we can punish cadres excessively; because accommodation is the current trend, it’s hard to be strict. The tendency is to rely on fines instead of laws: when someone violates the law or Party discipline, they’re given a light fine in lieu of legal punishment, in lieu of the penalties prescribed by Party discipline or national law. We can’t go on like this. We must make the nature of this problem clear: if you use your power for personal gain, if you are corrupt and take bribes, you must be punished in accordance with Party discipline and national law. When I say we must be strict and not be afraid to overdo it slightly, these remarks are directed at the rule-breaking behavior that is constantly being excused. Don’t people often say things like “The law doesn’t punish what is done by many,” and “If you punish one, you’ll offend many?” Given this situation, we have to emphasize “not being afraid to overdo it slightly.” Of course we must still mete out appropriate punishments and not overdo that.
Last year we encountered all sorts of difficulties, yet the situation remained stable. A very important reason was that the people of Shanghai still had some confidence in the Municipal Party Committee and government. While our work was not that outstanding, we always emphasized clean government, we always emphasized serving the people, and everyone worked very hard. The behavior of our Municipal Party Committee and government leaders was upright and we didn’t wine and dine, let alone take bribes. Only by being very emphatic about integrity and efficiency can we win the people’s support, and only then will the Party Committee and government have the prestige to lead the people of Shanghai forward.
Oversight serves to maintain clean government, and the mission of the Municipal Bureau of Supervision is an honorable one. I frequently forward to the bureau letters exposing [misconduct] and directives about such cases. Your staff is small and your work is onerous, hectic, and exhausting. Moreover, it is often misunderstood by the departments, units, or individuals being investigated, which are often critical and have negative views of this work, with the result that many of them feel offended. Nowadays it isn’t easy to dare to offend people. During the past year, you were principled, you weren’t afraid to offend, and you didn’t use special relationships—this spirit deserves to be commended, and I hope you will continue to promote it.
The Municipal Party Committee and municipal government support you. You are an incorruptible agency: you receive no special rewards, yet you still do your work conscientiously. When you face difficulties, we will do our best to help you overcome them; when others don’t understand you, we will explain things to them. You are true to your principles and full of enthusiasm, but because you lack experience, there are some shortcomings in your work. That isn’t important: I will assume the responsibility, because I am in charge of oversight work. Of course you must review experiences and do better work; you should follow the guidance of the Party and the principles of oversight work and continue to boldly do your work well without holding back.
This Year’s Oversight Concerns
Shanghai’s oversight work this year should focus mainly on three areas.
1. Integrity and Efficiency among Leading Officials. We must continue to focus on integrity and efficiency among leading officials at the bureau level and above. Although exposés of misconduct among them are becoming fewer in number and officials are becoming more self-conscious about their behavior, signs of corrupt behavior are still apparent and there are always some individuals who do not pay attention to this. Therefore we cannot ease up on this work and must keep focusing on it. Cadres are the key to revitalizing Shanghai, especially leading cadres at the bureau level and above.
2. Open Administration and Integrity at Local Offices. We must continue to focus on the system of working openly at local offices and serving the people with integrity. Last year, the Huangpu District and Songjiang County were the first to take steps to start pilot programs in this regard at some units. The Huangpu District reported its experience at the recent national conference on oversight work, and the central government assessed our results positively. This year, we can consider broadening the scope of the trials, putting more supporting measures in place, and establishing scientific systems for evaluations, rewards, and penalties in order to prepare for a civil service system. We also need to undertake a few reforms with internally funded salaries.3 The Huangpu District has indicated that the open administration system has cut off some major sources of “outside income.”
This is a wonderful thing—we absolutely must not have this sort of “compensation” that ruins social mores. But in order for it to be long lasting, we must think of how to gradually raise cadre incomes. Let’s not talk about “maintaining integrity through high salaries”—we’re unable to pay high salaries. But we should still enable cadres to be better compensated so that the open administration system and activities to educate them about integrity in serving the people can continue over time. We still have to examine whether other districts and counties can emulate Huangpu District and Songjiang County in starting a pilot program for one neighborhood or one township, and determine concretely how to do so. This should be dealt with personally by district and county heads. In short, we must further promote the open administration system and activities to educate cadres about integrity in serving the people.
3. Oversight at Enterprises and Publicly Funded Institutions. We should strengthen the oversight, management, and education of leading cadres (including factory directors and managers) at enterprises and publicly funded institutions. First, they should exercise self-restraint. At the same time, we must set some rules. Last year, our rules about “four dishes and one soup” and “one dish and a soup” only applied to bureau-level cadres. They weren’t extended to enterprises because we were afraid they would be too rigidly applied to enterprise operations. We originally thought that if leading cadres set an example, enterprises would behave a bit better. It now seems that the vogue for wining and dining and accepting gifts is very serious at enterprises. Some enterprises will spend several hundred thousand yuan on a single celebratory activity. Some factory directors and managers treat money like dirt, holding banquets with dozens of tables. When receiving people sent by higher levels for inspections and evaluations, some units will hand out gift bags worth RMB 100.4 We can see from accusatory letters that the people detest such behavior and feel that we are not controlling the tendency to wine and dine.
I recently asked the Municipal Economic Commission and the Bureau of Supervision to draft a document extending the ban on wining and dining and the building of clean government to enterprises. This extension is not meant to stifle them by being too rigid. If we are too rigid with four dishes and a soup, there goes all their business—that wouldn’t be good. But at least two measures are in order.
First, enterprises should try to be thriftier in their social functions. Don’t be so wasteful, and only do what must be done. We don’t necessarily have to rely on such things—I refuse to believe that there are no other ways. Let me remind leading cadres that your subordinates and the people are watching you with their eyes wide open. Do you think raw materials will appear just because some of you factory directors get together to eat and drink? Do you think you’ll get business that way? There’s no such thing. If enterprises improve their product quality a bit, if they develop a few more product types, if all their products meet the highest standards, they’ll be able to open up markets. Must you give gifts, offer bribes, and pay kickbacks in order to sell your products?
Second, cadres from city government agencies, especially leading cadres, must not attend enterprise social functions. If you’re so capable, help them get some raw materials—but must you have that meal to do so? If government cadres take the lead in not going to these meals, the wining and dining situation at enterprises will get a little better. If you all join in, they will have no qualms whatsoever. This is a policy issue and it’s worth studying what the appropriate limits should be. But we must never become detached from the people—the employees at all the factories are the people by your side, and their eyes are watching you.
Shanghai wants to cultivate true entrepreneurs. To form a mighty team of them, we must offer them assistance and strengthen management, education, and oversight. The document being jointly drafted by the Municipal Economic Commission and the Bureau of Supervision must be a good one. It has to consider all sides if it is to have a positive effect and be conducive to the healthy development of entrepreneurs. We now have many fine entrepreneurs and factory directors, and I hope that journalists will give them more coverage. They don’t rely on bribes or relationships in their operations; instead, they use their own talents to lead their employees in forging ahead single-mindedly. They have the courage to try new things, and they emphasize technological advances. They are adept at studying strategies for market development, they create new products, dominate the [domestic] market, and move into foreign ones. They are hard-working and plain-living people who lead by example, are at one with their employees, and are gradually turning around the improper trends at enterprises.
Strengthening Oversight at All Levels
Leaders at all levels must attach great importance to promoting integrity among cadres, and they must effectively strengthen their leadership of oversight work.
Leaders Must Take Personal Charge of Oversight Work. The principal leaders of all districts, counties, and bureau-level departments must take personal charge of oversight work and of promoting integrity in government. They must build up their teams by consistently focusing on “integrity and efficiency.” At the city government level, Huang Ju and I will be in charge of oversight work, assisted by Ni Hongfu. Three mayors are in charge of oversight—that shows how important we think it is. We are the backstop for you, the oversight cadres, and of course we have the support of the Municipal Party Committee. Jiang Zemin attaches great importance to this, and Yang Ti5 is also personally focusing on it. I’m sure that with our principal leaders focusing on it, we can do a good job of promoting integrity in government.
Leaders Must Be Role Models. Leaders at all levels must start with themselves, be strict in their self-discipline, and act as role models for others. There’s an ancient saying: “Functionaries do not fear my strictness, they fear my integrity. The people do not accept my authority because of my ability, but because of my fairness. Only by being fair can a person distinguish between right and wrong, and only by being incorruptible can a person establish his authority.”6 That is to say, as long as you are clean, others can say nothing. Otherwise, if you’ve eaten someone’s food, you won’t want to speak up against him, and if you’ve accepted things from someone, you won’t want to take action against him. If you “neither eat nor accept,” then you’ll be able to make strict demands of your subordinates. That’s why you must first be able to walk straight and sit firm in order to be authoritative. No matter how great your abilities, the people might not accept your authority. After all, there are limits to anyone’s ability, but if you’re fair and play no favorites, the people will accept your authority. Leading cadres may have greater or lesser abilities, they may be at higher or lower levels, but they must be fair and incorruptible and they must play no favorites. If you’re fair, you won’t have biases when examining issues and you’ll see the issues more clearly; if you’re incorruptible, you’ll have authority. These words put it very well; they basically mean that leaders must exercise strict self-discipline and first look to their own behavior.
Strengthen Concrete Leadership at Oversight Agencies. We must all support agency leaders politically, care for them materially, and do a good job of building up the oversight agencies themselves. We should let responsible members of these agencies attend executive meetings of the government and important meetings convened by related departments. We should invite the Bureau of Supervision to attend administrative meetings held by mayors. Invite them to come and listen regardless of the topic and let them know what the city government is working on, so that their oversight of integrity in government can be centered on our core tasks. We should frequently listen to work reports of the oversight agencies, assign them tasks, and set expectations of them. I don’t listen to reports often enough but have assigned quite a few tasks and issued quite a few directives. We must concretely help oversight agencies solve some real problems in order to strengthen their cohesiveness and fighting ability.
These agencies should also be strengthening their own ranks. Their responsibilities are great and their mission is arduous: this sort of work is demanding but pleases no one; it’s work that offends others and makes them swear at you. At present, the vast majority of the cadres at government agencies are quite poor—their remuneration is fairly low, roughly the same as yours in the oversight sector and much lower than at enterprises. But most of our cadres are politically conscious, and when they work, they must rely on this consciousness and on our sense of duty to the Party—we must have such a spirit.
The ranks of Shanghai’s oversight cadres were built on a foundation of strict and careful vetting. This is a fine force, a force of cadres of fairly high caliber. The Municipal Party Committee and government place high hopes in you and believe that you will do outstanding work, create an image of integrity and fairness, and make upright social mores authoritative. When our people see hope through your work, it will firm up their confidence in the Party and in the government. Of course you also have to further elevate the levels of your own thinking and [understanding of] policy. In order for oversight work to have a positive impact, you have to study harder, be adept at dealing with different issues, and have a good grasp of what is appropriate.
Oversight work is not simply a matter of punishing an individual. Our goal is to educate cadres, to motivate everyone, and to properly build up the ranks of our cadres. It’s therefore very important to handle the relations between all parties well. In your work, you must adhere to principles but also assess the situation; in dealing with specific questions, you must be utterly impartial but also take suitable action. At present, a model for a planned commodity economy has not yet completely taken shape, so you must be very cautious when judging the nature of an incident. The key is to see if money has gone into someone’s pocket. If it has all gone into that individual’s own pocket, that is an instance of using power for personal gain, of corruption and bribe-taking, and it must be dealt with strictly. If an incident violates policy rules but the money ultimately goes to the collective, then it should be treated differently. In short, you must do concrete analyses when handling these matters: what was the situation then and what impact does it have now; how can it be handled in a sensible and reasonable way so that the rules are clear and enforced while the person is also being educated? This isn’t easy to do, and you should all gradually accumulate experience in this area.
Certain questions can be investigated in a face-to-face manner to avoid complicating matters. The main targets of our investigations are leading cadres. They have received many years of education from the Party and have fairly high [political] consciousness. If they have made mistakes, they will be able to acknowledge it provided you explain matters to them clearly. Some accusations are made by people who don’t understand the issue very clearly, which is why face-to-face meetings can help clarify matters.
Henceforth, in conducting certain investigations you should obtain corroborative evidence. That’s the method I use. Last year, whenever people wrote to me to accuse or expose a high-ranking cadre, particularly if that cadre was not within Shanghai’s jurisdiction, I would forward a directive with the letter to our oversight agencies and at the same time have a direct talk with that person. Very often, things became clear once he explained them; then he himself could feel that the [Party] organization had confidence in him and that he would make stricter demands of himself in the future. If you work behind his back and some misdeed did occur, he would have nothing to say, while if it did not happen, he would feel resentful. That’s why if something can be explained clearly, it’s best to do so face-to-face. This is my experience, which I offer for your reference.
Also, you must protect the accuser. Letters with directives from leaders should not be forwarded to the accused. Recently, an accusatory letter from the people that I had not read was forwarded by the Office of Letters and Petitions directly to the agency in charge, asking that the agency handle it and then report to me. Ultimately, the letter was forwarded to the accused, who then retaliated against the accuser. This had a very negative effect and is entirely different from the “face-to-face” approach I was just talking about. You can continue to study ways to do your work. I hope that this year our oversight work will produce even greater results in ensuring and overseeing integrity and efficiency in government.
1. This refers to “Rules of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government Regarding Stringent Frugality among Leading Government Agency Cadres Who Are Bureau Directors and Above.” They consisted of the following guidelines. (1) Simple standards are to be observed at dinners essential to ceremonial activities; all dinners are to consist of “four dishes and a soup,” and the number of invitees is to be strictly limited. (2) If it is necessary to have meals at the grassroots when inspecting or conducting research there, all cadres are to pay for their own meals, which may not exceed one dish and one soup, and which must be paid for at standard rates. (3) “Four dishes and a soup” should also be observed at ordinary dinners for foreign guests. (4) When attending ceremonial activities and conferences, cadres may not accept gifts; no exceptions may be made for activities marking the start of operations, grand openings, or commemorations at foreign-invested enterprises. (5) Samples and gifts may not be accepted under the pretext of testing or certification. (6) When convening meetings, agencies of the city government may not, under any pretext, give attendees gifts (including briefcases and ballpoint pens) or gift coupons. (7) Gifts that are difficult to refuse must, after acceptance, be turned over to the recipient’s work unit for unified handling. (8) Gift-giving at activities involving foreigners should be handled in accordance with the rules for such activities.
2. Translator’s note: this is a metaphor for incorruptibility in an official.
3. This was a reform of the wage system in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) implemented in 1985. In the pilot programs at large and medium industrial and transportation SOEs with the requisite conditions, a floating peg was formed that linked the total amount paid out in wages to overall economic performance. Other enterprises could use a portion of their retained profits for internal wage reforms, and the latter were known as “self-funded wage reforms.”
4. In 1989 the annual disposable income of urban and township residents in China was RMB 1,373.9 (RMB 114.5 a month).
5. Yang Ti was then a deputy secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee.
6. A quotation from Admonitions for Officials, by Guo Yunli of the Ming dynasty. The original text was: “Functionaries do not fear my strictness, they fear my integrity. The people do not accept my authority because of my ability, but because of my fairness. If I am incorruptible, functionaries will not dare be disrespectful to me; if I am fair, the people will not dare deceive me. Only by being fair can someone distinguish between right and wrong, and only by being incorruptible can someone establish his authority.”