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)