The practice of “take blame and resign” is getting sporadic
shoves forward as local governments, like southwest China’s Sichuan
Province, put new regulations in place.
Experts have hailed the move as a step toward better management
of officials.
On November 19 last year, Sichuan's "take blame and resign"
regulation for government and Communist Party of China (CPC)
officials took effect.
The regulation lists nine instances of bad management under
which officials are required to resign if at fault. The instances
all involve poor decisions that lead to negative political impact
or great economic losses, and breaches of duty that lead to serious
accidents.
The term "take blame and resign" appears in the national
regulation on the selection and appointment of Party and government
officials that took effect in 2002.
Before that, a provisional stipulation on the same subject was
in place.
The regulation simply states that officials should resign to
take the blame for misconduct or a breach of duty that cause great
losses and a negative social impact, or serious accidents, in areas
under their jurisdiction.
No further details on the regulation were immediately
available.
According to Li Jiayi, an official with the organizational
department of the Sichuan provincial committee of the Communist
Party of China (CPC)--the department responsible for writing the
new regulation--the purpose is to strengthen the management of
officials.
Chinese officials rarely step down from office voluntarily, she
said.
This regulation will put pressure on officials to take
responsibility for their actions and make them more
self-disciplined, Li said.
She said the regulation also provides the general public and the
media with criteria to supervise local officials.
Sources with the organizational department of the Central
Committee of the CPC, the country's top body for official
management, said the department is doing research on more details
for a "take blame and resign" system at the state level.
However, they refused to give more information on the system or
progress in its design.
Sichuan is not the only place in the country with "take blame
and resign" rules.
Last December, south China's Guangdong Province enacted similar
regulations that list eight circumstances under which officials
must resign.
Other places eyeing similar rules include Shaoyang, in central
China's Hunan Province, and southwest China's Chongqing
Municipality, according to media reports.
Wang Zhenmin, deputy dean of the Tsinghua University School of
Law, said Chinese officials are usually infatuated with the power
and benefits their positions bring them and do not realize that
responsibility goes along with them.
In addition, the officials feel that they only need to hold
themselves responsible to their superiors, Wang said, adding that
they even assume their superiors will protect them when problems
occur.
That’s why public criticism means little to such officials, he
said.
“Chinese officials need to be aware of not only how to use their
power, but also the consequences of using their power,” he
said.
Liu Suhua, an expert with the Party School of the CPC Central
Committee, considered the regulation a good step in the reform of
China’s official management system.
Some officials live by the slogan, “Do nothing, nothing will go
wrong, and therefore there’s no need to be responsible for
anything,” she said.
Critics argue that if there is a regulation forcing them to take
blame and resign, then the practice is still not based on the free
will of the officials.
In the Western world, where the practice is quite common, there
are no regulations to that effect, they point out.
But both Liu and Wang agreed that in the current situation in
China, it is better to have concrete regulations because such
awareness is now far from being widespread among Chinese
officials.
The development of a “take blame and resign” practice will take
time.
“Gradually there will be a perfect environment and Chinese
officials will become accountable,” she said.
“If any of the nine circumstances occurred in my work, I would
be willing to resign to take the blame,” said Wang Fei, vice mayor
of Bazhong, in Sichuan.
He said as far as he knows, most officials in the province
support the regulation.
“An official should know how to be an official as well as how to
become an ordinary citizen,” he said.
(China Daily March 8, 2004)