When statistician Li Deshui criticized local governments for
their suspicious statistics at the ongoing full session of the
China People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the
nation's top advisory body, more than 100 Chinese newspapers ran
the story on their front pages.
Li's criticism, along with last year's "audit
storm" and January's "environmental protection storm," has
revealed a new trend: government officials and agencies are
shedding the traditional practice of covering up for each
other.
Since the central government toughened up on supervision of
departmental responsibility last year, reports of criticism between
government bodies -- or "bites between ministries" -- have become
common in the Chinese media.
"The GDP figures I received from various provincial governments
were 2.7 trillion yuan (US$326.2 billion) more than the accounting
of my bureau," said Li, director of the National Statistics Bureau
(NSB) and a member of the CPPCC.
Li's open criticism was reminiscent of last June's "audit
storm," when Auditor-General Li Jinhua exposed extensive misuse of
public funds by several government agencies in his report to the
Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's
legislature.
The public audit report, involving a dozen central government
offices and local governments, was made public instead revealed
only to a few at the top levels of government. Li Jinhua became an
instant hero to the citizenry, putting enormous pressure on the
embarrassed departments to rectify their misuse of funds.
On January 18, the State Environmental Protection Administration
(SEPA) launched a campaign to force compliance with the
government's environmental impact assessment regulations. It
temporarily shut down construction of 139 projects involving
billions of US dollars, including several hydroelectric power
plants related to the Three Gorges Dam project.
The campaign was dubbed the "environmental protection storm" by
the media, as it was directed against powerful, high-level
polluters that habitually ignore environmental protection
requirements.
"The success of these 'storms' can be attributed to the clear
support of the central government and huge support from the media
and the public," said Professor Wu Jiang of the State
Administration College.
A dozen similar disputes have been reported between government
agencies in recent months.
Last May, the Ministry of Commerce openly disagreed with
Shanghai's policy of controlling private automobile registrations
through license plate auctions, and a ranking official in the
Science and Technology Ministry criticized Beijing's decision to
buy foreign software last November.
The emergence of these unusual "bites between ministries" is not
the impulsive action of a few renegades, said Wu. It is the
inevitable result of institutional reform initiated by the central
government.
In what has been called a "self revolution of the government,"
the changes to the Administrative Licensing Law that took effect
last July clearly strengthen supervision over administrative
agencies.
Early this year, the State Council amended the statute on its
own working rules, requiring the cabinet to promote administrative
supervision and carry out administrative activities strictly
according to law.
Analysts here agree that such efforts have helped curb rampant
abuse of power in the bureaucracy and increase the transparency of
administrative operations.
"The strong demand from both the top leadership and the public
will stimulate more government departments to take aim at one
another," predicted Wu.
(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2005)