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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Opinion -> 
Forging new official-business relationships
    2016-04-25  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    AT a recent meeting with delegates from the business sector attending the annual session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), President Xi Jinping described a desirable official-business relationship as “intimate” and “clean.”

    He explained that being “intimate” means that officials should keep good relations with businesses in a bona fide manner and do their job to help enterprises solve their practical difficulties. By “clean,” he said that officials must be free of corruption, never involved in power-for-money deals, while businesspeople must be above board in dealing business and follow the laws. Private entrepreneurs should be able to tell the truth and offer forthright criticism and suggestions to officials, Xi added.

    Xi’s remarks shed new light on an old subject in China: official-business relationships. In some sense, the evolutionary history of official-business relationships in China is a part of Chinese history.

    Until recent decades, China was an agricultural society. In ancient times, feudal landlords represented the upper class and private fiefdoms were the financial sources for the rulers of the nation: kings or emperors, along with the bureaucratic apparatus. The primary path up the social ladder for people was to study hard and sit the imperial examination. The winners would be appointed as officials at various levels.

    Official policies were always in favor of agriculture over commercial endeavors and businesspeople were looked down upon as dishonest and uneducated.

    Their low socioeconomic status forced them to flatter and bribe officials in exchange for protection and favors. It has become a consensus that without connections with officials, a business will struggle to succeed. Of course, greedy officials lined their pockets by taking bribes.

    Things changed dramatically after the founding of the PRC in 1949. The nationalization of the nation’s economy wiped out private ownership. Neither capitalist elements nor official-business relationships survived. Officials were generally clean, as they were unable to get money from anyone since almost everyone was equally poor.

    What happened after China began to open and reform has been known to all: the booming economy and the expanding army of private businesspeople, plus lagging anti-corruption measures, have corrupted a staggering number of officials from the bottom up. The greed of Chinese corrupt “tigers” and “flies” is beyond imagination.

    Yet they did not fall into depravity at the beginning. Decades of a planned economy had made Chinese officials unfamiliar with the business world or commercial practices, so they were wary of everything capitalist and kept businesspeople at arm’s length, to say nothing of asking for bribes.

    The top leadership went to great lengths to encourage officials to make friends with businesspeople and create a comfortable environment for investment. Gradually, officials learned how to please businesspeople by wining and dining them. And later on, they were bold enough to take bribes.

    Over time, the never-healthy official-business relationship evolved into a cancerous one. The long-time absence of a complete and enforceable anti-graft system has resulted in serious consequences.

    Since Xi took office in 2013, China has carried out an unprecedented anti-corruption campaign, bringing hundreds of thousands of corrupt officials to justice. The rampant corruption has been largely curbed.

    Some officials, however, have found themselves in a dilemma: their intimacy with businesspeople may draw suspicion of graft while their duty to serve businesses requires their close connections with the latter.

    Others have chosen to keep a distance from businesspeople since they thought the anti-corruption drive had driven them off the gravy train — accumulating money through power-for-money deals.

    

    Frankly, it’s impossible to turn Chinese official-business relationships into Western-style ones because China is basically a society of guanxi, or connections, which lays an emphasis on implicit mutual obligations, reciprocity and trust between people.

    The traditional official-business relationship must be reshaped to adapt to new circumstances. Xi’s statement is timely and relevant.

    Of course, a mere guideline is by no means adequate. Only when legislation, regulations, supervision, inspection and punishment join hands with a new culture of official-business relationships can a new relationship be formed.

    In a word, only a transparent form of official-business relationship is healthy and sustainable.

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)

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