Red-Headed Document Intercession: The Survival of Local Offices in Beijing and the Steel Plant's Game The Directors Can't Accept the Argument That Corruption Has Led to Reorganization —— This Notion is Hard for the Directors of Local Offices in Beijing to Swallow. If resources continue to be concentrated in the hands of central ministries, then the various problems attributed to this institution will still be difficult to eradicate.
The end-of-year period in 2010 might have been the hardest for county-level directors of local offices in Beijing. The difficulty lay in the uncertainty about their personal futures.
Before the New Year, a red-headed document from the General Office of the State Council was finally issued. In the document titled "Opinions on Strengthening and Regulating the Management of Local Governments' Offices in Beijing," provisions were made regarding the retention or abolition of various levels of local offices in Beijing, with a requirement that all county-level offices be dissolved within six months.
It was like a bombshell that exploded across society.
"Upon the release of this document, we were all shocked, having not even received it yet, finding it hard to believe," said Zhang Rui (a pseudonym), a director of a county-level office in Beijing, stating that many were unprepared for this development.
He felt somewhat lost and worried as the fate of his organization had already been determined to be dissolved, but his own future remained undecided.
Anti-corruption Signal?
In the context of increasing anti-corruption efforts by the central government, the issuance of this "Opinion" was seen as one of the significant measures against corruption.
After the "Opinion" was released, relevant officials from the State Administration for Public Institutions Affairs also expressed that this would play an important role in standardizing the management of local offices in Beijing, strengthening Party conduct and clean governance, reducing administrative costs, and cutting expenses.
"Can our efforts in Party conduct and clean governance improve significantly just by dissolving the local offices in Beijing? To say that these offices are the source of corruption is too subjective," said a county magistrate interviewed by Xiaokang magazine, raising his voice over the phone.
"Why now do people say that corruption has prompted the issuance of this document? This is a biased interpretation, a misreading of the State Council's document," said Li Ancai, president of the National Association of Information for Local Offices in Beijing, who became visibly agitated while pulling out the document for the journalist to see.
"How should we view local offices in Beijing? This document issued by the State Council has unified the national voice. It clearly acknowledges the achievements of these offices before pointing out their shortcomings. This is looking at the issue dialectically, and any problem should be viewed in this way."
However, there is no denying that in the past years, this institution plagued by systemic ailments has long been criticized for corruption, even being seen by society as a symbol of corruption.
Over the years, central government efforts to reorganize local offices in Beijing have often been under the name of "corruption."
As early as the early 1990s, the General Office of the State Council forwarded a notice for the cleanup and reorganization of local institutions in Beijing: "All government offices in Beijing must not engage in business or run enterprises, and those already operating such businesses must immediately dissolve them."
In January 2006, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection proposed "preventing and addressing issues such as gift-giving and bribery among some local and enterprise offices in Beijing." Subsequently, a special cleanup campaign was launched targeting corruption in "local offices in Beijing."
At the same time, reorganizing local offices in Beijing was listed as one of the four main tasks by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Department that year.
Thereafter, reform plans were never issued until January 19, 2010, when after four years of waiting, the red-headed document from the State Council was finally issued.
However, dramatically, before the red-headed document reached the local offices in Beijing, a report from Liaowang was published first. On January 24, the directors of local offices in Beijing learned of their institution's fate of dissolution through the report. They found it hard to believe, initially mistaking it for fake news.
"When the news came out, we got information from many insiders at the State Administration for Public Institutions Affairs saying it was still in draft form. But just after that, it was announced the next day," they said.
The country was launching a battle against possible breeding grounds for corruption —— this red-headed document was seen as an important signal.
Is it a flower of evil or a source of sin?
However, the argument that they were reorganized due to corruption is almost impossible for the directors of local offices in Beijing to calmly accept.
"The purpose of establishing this institution was also to gather some information, gain some experience, and the original intention was for economic construction. Who would come specifically to engage in corruption?" Li Ancai was very agitated. He said he had never felt that the local offices in Beijing were so corrupt, nor had he ever enjoyed the treatment of corruption.
For more than 20 years, Li Ancai has been working in this position, welcoming and seeing off visitors: "Leaders usually take evening flights from Guangzhou, and we wait at the airport in Beijing. In winter, it's possible to wait until one or two in the morning. I am available here at any time, which is very tiring, and those who don't do this job won't understand."
In that era of planned economy, they once marketed Guangzhou products like salespeople, running orders. Color TVs, refrigerators, rice cookers —— the office organized these products for exhibitions and exchanges in Beijing, securing orders from embassies and exporting refrigerators and rice cookers.
"At that time, Zhujiang Beer from Guangzhou was shipped to Beijing by trainloads. When someone called to place an order, I felt proud because they wanted our Guangzhou products," he said.
As the market economy developed increasingly, the office also actively supported the local economic and urban development.
"In Beijing, we frequently conduct information exchanges, product exchanges, and macro-policy exchanges. We suggest to the government what each province does that is recognized by the center and worthy of our learning. For example, garbage incineration is now a problem, and people don't want incineration plants. What should we do? We keep looking for good policies in other provinces," he said.
He felt somewhat heartbroken, "Why does no one see us working tirelessly?"
"Why haven't the directors of local offices in Beijing stood up straight and advocated for themselves for so many years?" someone countered. In fact, most of the directors interviewed by this magazine preferred not to disclose their identities.
In Li Ancai's memory, the notion of "running to ministries for money" has become a blank spot.
However, this blank part is precisely where the public imagination runs wild. He did not completely avoid further questioning about "running to ministries for money."
In late 2008, after the central government decided to implement the "4 trillion yuan economic stimulus plan," queues of local officials formed outside the doors of the National Development and Reform Commission, waiting to secure projects and policies.
"A project assigned to a certain province goes through a process of additional funding from start to finish. To secure additional funds, you must run around," Li Ancai believed this was reasonable. "If there is a problem, it's a systemic issue. There isn't a transparent and open way to allocate funds during this process, which is an issue at higher levels that cannot be changed below. If the central government allocated funds to each province without needing to run around, and the bank automatically transferred the funds, who would bother to invite for meals or run to ministries?"
Directors of local offices complained that unfair rules, lack of transparency in information, and unstable policies led to their practices of inviting guests and presenting gifts, "running to ministries for money."
"It's not as if the NDRC blindly allocates funds. Funds are distributed within a regulated range based on the project. For example, if a project originally planned for 5 billion yuan in support receives more invitations and lobbying, it might increase by 200 million yuan. Isn't there also a discretionary range of 3 to 7 years in court sentencing?" Li Ancai said, arguing that these possibilities are normal human behavior.
Zhang Rui admitted that local offices in Beijing certainly had issues to some extent. However, he believed that more importantly, ministry officials needed to enhance their own immunity.
"Local offices in Beijing are flowers of evil but not sources of sin; they are merely another manifestation of corruption." Li Gang, editor-in-chief of the "Beijing Dispatch" newspaper, said that corruption is not exclusive to local offices in Beijing.
"Will the space for 'running to ministries' shrink?"
In June 2009, the magazine published a cover story titled "The Original Ecology of 'Local Offices in Beijing,'" objectively restoring the face of this demonized institution. The conclusion was: if a large amount of resources continues to be concentrated in the hands of central departments without scientific and effective institutional norms, the corruption and darkness associated with this institution will persist.
Surviving in such an institutional environment, this institution will gradually become alienated.
Tang Jincheng, president of the Professional Committee of Guild Halls of the China Cultural Relics Society, has been studying the history and culture of local offices in Beijing. During long-term interactions with these offices, he often saw phenomena like the directors treating junior clerks in ministries like grandfathers, providing free use of office vehicles and paying for their meals.
"The goal is to secure national financial support for local projects. Is the responsibility on the office or the supervising department? It's because the threshold of the supervising department is too high, making people bribe you. If it were lowered and made fair, no one would bother doing it," Tang Jincheng said.
People with extensive social connections are the most needed talents by the offices. Many county-level offices don't even hang signs but entrust individuals with strong influence in Beijing to handle liaison work.
"Now it's not just counties, even towns are here, and I've encountered them," Tang Jincheng revealed. These individuals, even if not civil servants, can be hired by counties, such as celebrities from the business community.
Former Director of the National Administrative Affairs Bureau Qi Zhanyun once set three requirements for the offices: recognize people, know which leaders are in which offices; get into the door, regardless of the method used, you need to enter the ministry's door; accomplish tasks, if you can't accomplish tasks, what are you doing?
"Some provincial party secretaries and governors, upon arriving in Beijing, are directly taken to the offices of ministries to discuss matters, and then fly back home the same night. This efficiency is right here. Why doesn't everyone see it?" Qi Zhanyun said.
He once proposed two slogans: one, information is productivity, and another, relationships are productivity.
"Without relationships, no one wants you. It mainly depends on how well you manage your connections." He admitted that some individuals indeed have strong public relations skills.
Tang Jincheng summarized: the power of the director of a local office depends on whether there are famous people from their area. If a county or city has produced many famous people in Beijing, they find it much easier to run projects.
For instance, the Xinyang region has produced 108 famous individuals, and the director of the office always meets many leaders during hometown gatherings, making his work easier.
This is the power of the office.
A mayor from a city in the Pearl River Delta admitted that in penetrating the weak links of some departments in various ministries, local offices in Beijing can indeed play a pivotal role in breaking through barriers and connecting links.
For example, in the competition between the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta for industrial transformation and upgrading projects, local offices in Beijing need to "run to ministries for money." "If you wait for messages to be passed down level by level and then apply for projects level by level, there's definitely no hope. How can you not run around?"
"But saying that county-level local offices in Beijing can go to Beijing and connect various relationships is exaggerating their power," said Xu Fei, mayor of Wudalianchi City, in an interview with this magazine. "When rules weren't very perfect, the activities of local offices in Beijing were significant, but now the operational procedures of some key departments are becoming more standardized, and using non-normal means through local offices in Beijing to break through barriers will become increasingly difficult."
Wudalianchi is a county-level city that abolished its local office in Beijing ten years ago mainly due to fiscal pressure.
"After the tax-sharing system reform, the financial strength of county governments in our country is not very strong, especially in northern counties. Local offices in Beijing require funding to maintain, and the costs are not low. From this perspective, abolishing county-level local offices in Beijing is necessary," Xu Fei said.
He believes that many project reporting processes from the grassroots level are becoming standardized, and it is very difficult for a county-level director of a local office in Beijing to change the outcome. The speculative public relations capabilities are weakening.
On February 4, Deputy Director of the State Administration for Public Institutions Affairs Shang Xiaoting responded to netizens' questions, indicating: as national administrative management reforms and investment reforms deepen, with the gradual improvement of fiscal transfer payment systems and the comprehensive establishment of government transparency systems, the space for localities to "run to ministries" will inevitably shrink gradually.
This is considered the most fundamental direction for addressing the chronic problems of local offices in Beijing.
History of the Survival of Local Offices in Beijing
On April 25, 1962, to implement the policy guidelines of central streamlining, the State Council issued "The State Council's Approval of the Opinion of the State Council Administrative Affairs Bureau on the Cancellation and Retention of Local Offices in Beijing," requiring the cancellation of local offices in Beijing from all provinces, cities, and autonomous regions except Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. The document also stated that if there were difficulties or actual needs, they could be retained. As a result, most of the local offices that were supposed to be canceled were retained.
On December 27, 1966, the State Council issued "The State Council's Decision to Cancel the Offices of Provincial, Municipal, Autonomous Region, and People's Committees in Beijing," except for the Tibet Office, which was handled separately by the central government. All 27 other offices were canceled. In November 1978, the State Council agreed to restore local offices in Beijing.
In the early 1990s, the General Office of the State Council forwarded a notice for the cleanup and reorganization of local institutions in Beijing, requiring "all government offices in Beijing must not engage in business or run enterprises, and those already operating such businesses must immediately dissolve them."
In January 2006, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection proposed "preventing and addressing issues such as gift-giving and bribery among some local and enterprise offices in Beijing." Subsequently, a special cleanup campaign was launched targeting corruption in "local offices in Beijing."
On February 27, 2006, the State Administration for Public Institutions Affairs held a meeting on integrity work, deciding to specifically plan and propose reform schemes for local offices in Beijing. That year, reorganizing local offices in Beijing was listed as one of the four main tasks by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Department. However, the reform scheme was never issued.
On January 19, 2010, the General Office of the State Council issued "Opinions on Strengthening and Regulating the Management of Local Governments' Offices in Beijing."
Who Cries When Local Offices in Beijing Are Abolished?
"Who cries when local offices in Beijing are abolished?"
This was the first reaction of Zhao Lianqi (a pseudonym), a mayor of a county-level city, when interviewed by Xiaokang magazine. His government's local office in Beijing was included in the list of cancellations.
"It's not the existence of local offices in Beijing that causes corruption; corruption is mainly a problem of the system. The existence of local offices in Beijing must have its rationality. Without achieving institutional transformation, abolishing these more than 500 county-level local offices in Beijing will make many people cry," he said.
After the issuance of the "Opinions on Strengthening and Regulating the Management of Local Governments' Offices in Beijing" by the General Office of the State Council, the agenda must include what situations will arise after the cancellation of county-level local offices in Beijing.
Can Stability Maintenance Pressure Be Alleviated?
"Who needs local offices in Beijing? Whose child is it?" Zhao Lianqi said that the State Council's document first acknowledged the achievements of local offices in Beijing, especially in "handling emergencies and maintaining stability in the capital, playing a positive role." This is relatively objective and shows that Beijing needs local offices in Beijing.
Then, will Beijing face great pressure after the cancellation of these more than 500 county-level local offices in Beijing?
The mayor categorized local offices in Beijing into roughly ten types based on different functions: brand image type, strong operation type, investment attraction type, project lobbying type, ministry-running type, comprehensive service type, leader reception type, logistics distribution type, specialty exhibition type, and petition handling type.
"County-level local offices in Beijing, especially those from underdeveloped areas, are mostly of the petition handling type," he said. County governments are the foundation of Chinese political power, and contradictions during social transformation are most prominent at the county level. Most events of sudden incidents, appeals beyond jurisdiction, and illegal appeals occur at the county level. County-level local offices in Beijing play a role in stopping and persuading in these events, contributing greatly to maintaining stability in the capital.
Tang Jincheng, president of the Professional Committee of Guild Halls of the China Cultural Relics Society, holds the same view. He introduced that in previous stability maintenance work, the Beijing municipal government funded the repatriation of vagrants, beggars, and petitioners. If a county had a local office in Beijing, the county would handle it itself, "whoever's child takes it away," saving Beijing a significant amount of funds. Local offices in Beijing are very necessary for Beijing.
Zhang Chunjiang (a pseudonym), director of a county-level local office in Beijing in Hebei Province, complained: "I'm almost becoming the head of the petition bureau, running around for stability maintenance every day, panting from exhaustion. Now it's finally being abolished, and I can't wait to reunite with my family."
One can imagine that canceling county-level local offices in Beijing will transfer this pressure to city-level local offices in Beijing. Since city-level offices generally oversee multiple counties, can they cope with this?
However, Li Ancai, president of the National Association of Information for Local Offices in Beijing, believes this concern is unnecessary. Stability maintenance involves the petition bureau, public security bureau, local government, and other departments. Local offices in Beijing only assist other departments in maintaining stability and do not handle all these matters alone. After the cancellation of county-level local offices in Beijing, city-level offices can fully assume this function. Moreover, abnormal petitions are currently a temporary situation, a social phenomenon resulting from the intersection of economic development and social contradictions. It is not permanent. With economic development, the rule of law, and the introduction of relevant policies, these contradictions will decrease.
Tang Jincheng suggested that after the cancellation of county-level local offices in Beijing, city-level offices could retain a liaison officer position for subordinate counties.
"If so, occupying one compilation position in the city-level office in Beijing, with the liaison officer's salary paid by the county, can reduce the burden on the county." Tang Jincheng said.
For example, if a city-level office in Beijing has ten compilation positions and oversees five counties, each county could send one liaison officer to become a staff member of the city-level office in Beijing, with salaries paid by the county. Using the finances of five counties to maintain one office in Beijing simplifies institutions, retains a window for the county government in Beijing, and completes the tasks assigned by the government.
More importantly, this can prevent many corrupt behaviors. Originally, the director of the county-level office in Beijing was a section-level official who dared not or could not supervise county-level leaders. After the county government establishes a liaison officer in the city-level office in Beijing, when county leaders come to Beijing for business, they can be supervised by the city-level office in Beijing. The director of the city-level office in Beijing is usually concurrently served by the deputy secretary-general of the municipal government, effectively exercising supervisory power. Moreover, the liaison officer has no financial authority, which is a constraint on county leaders.
Mayor Zhao Lianqi also agrees with this suggestion. He said that after the abolition of county-level offices in Beijing, setting up liaison officers in city-level offices in Beijing can strengthen the coordinating ability of city-level governments and reinforce the functions of city-level offices in Beijing. Liaison officers mainly focus on petition stability, coordinating the directors of petition bureaus and the standing vice-county magistrates responsible for petitions in various counties. "City-level governments have such power and can coordinate effectively."
Possible Futures After the Abolition of "Local Offices in Beijing"
Many netizens worry that abolished local offices in Beijing may exist in name only, or transform under different names. Interviewees generally believe that this situation is likely to occur.
"Who needs local offices in Beijing? Who nurtures them? Fundamentally, local offices in Beijing have their soil to survive. In other words, existence is reasonable." Another mayor of a northern city, interviewed by this magazine, believed that the State Council's document left a "gap" for city-level offices in Beijing, meaning they would not be abolished. Especially for stability maintenance work, if city-level offices in Beijing were abolished, it would lack an effective "handle" for stability maintenance.
County-level local offices in Beijing are also very likely to reappear in another form. Zhao Lianqi analyzed that county-level local offices in Beijing might transform into companies or other institutions.
"Sometimes there's nothing to do; removing the sign is enough." He believed that there's no need to pursue this excessively, as long as they manage assets properly, state-owned assets should not be lost during the transition, and existing functions should be rigidly required.
Unlike the north, Wei Dong (a pseudonym), director of a local office in Beijing in the Yangtze River Delta region, believed that in economically vibrant areas, abolished county-level local offices in Beijing are very likely to reappear under the names of guild halls, alumni associations, or chambers of commerce, leveraging civilian organizations to help the government "communicate between upper and lower levels."
According to Tang Jincheng's introduction, local offices in Beijing and guild halls have shown a trend of integration. The Macao office in Beijing is called the Macao Guild Hall. Currently, some provincial chambers of commerce are planning to establish guild halls. Although they are privately run, they can all be manipulated by the government. Guild halls themselves particularly hope for government support and connection, allowing the government's presence to retreat from the front stage to the backstage.
"This isn't necessarily a bad thing." Tang Jincheng believed that if they truly appear in the form of guild halls and fulfill their functions, they will serve the local people more, and it's not bad for guild halls to handle government affairs. However, vigilance is needed to prevent the government from using guild halls to covert