Good news for everyone - public service was the topic of the Communist Party of China (CPC) leadership's latest collective study session.

There seems to be an unspoken rule that each of these study sessions deals with a political imperative the CPC leaders have identified and decided to do something about.

President and CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao's proposal to build a service-oriented government assures us of the long-awaited follow-up to the CPC leadership's well-touted promise to deliver good governance. The pledge would sound hollow and even confusing otherwise. The proposal provides additional evidence that the CPC is coming to terms with the evolving role of the government in contemporary settings.

And the quality of the service a modern government provides determines that of its governance.

Late Chairman Mao Zedong's call to "Serve the people" became the collective motto of public institutions and individual citizens decades ago. It is still visible on the walls of historical buildings, memorial badges and elsewhere. Hu said at the study session that it is the "fundamental purpose" of the CPC and a "sacred mission" of all levels of governments.

Nothing could better justify the CPC's governing position than sound public service.

Hu's proposal to expand public services as economic progress allows and gradually build an inclusive, fair, affordable and sustainable public service system presents a sensible frame of reference for Chinese political reform.

We have little doubt about the proposal becoming a fashionable new catchphrase in official documents, public speeches and various slogans. Yet a service-oriented government entails a lot more than simple slogan-shouting.

Above all, there has to be a thorough reframing of the traditional philosophy of governance. Public office-holders have to first accept the concept of good governance means providing good service. It will not be easy to affix this notion in the minds of our public servants, a considerable of whom are more aware of their power than their responsibilities to serve the public interest.

A systematic effort must also be made to remodel and re-orient the national administrative framework, which has by and large been centered around concerns about administration and order. The new emphasis on service, or in Hu's own terms, "organic integration" of administration and service, requires a sophisticated weighing and balancing.

(China Daily February 25, 2008)