By staff reporter Lou Yi

Recently in China government officials have begun taking the blame for public crises and been forced to resign. Even more recently, faultless officials have begun to resign on their own initiative.

An official post often brings fame, power, and other benefits to public servants. In some southern provinces, a number of officials with bright political careers have surprisingly chosen to resign and become senior managers of commercial enterprises.

Wu Minyi, 48, the former vice mayor of Wenzhou city in Zhejiang Province, resigned three years ago and became a senior executive in a local shoe-making firm. Unlike Wu and other officials who gave up their government posts some years ago, officials in Zhejiang who want to quit now must face stricter restrictions.

New restrictions

In July, the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China released a regulation that imposes restrictions on officials who want to leave their government tenure. According to the document, officials shall not resign if they have major uncompleted work at hand, if their appointment has lasted less than a year, or if they are being investigated or audited by relevant departments. Additionally, they must submit a written application and get approval from CPC meetings after soliciting opinions from the personnel, disciplinary, and economic auditing departments. They should also report their business activities for three years after their resignation.

The more restrictive provision is that they can no longer freely choose which enterprises to join. The regulation stipulates that within three years, Party leaders, government officials, and court and procuratorate leaders shall not serve enterprises or public institutions within the jurisdiction of their former position. Wu and other officials who resigned some years ago would not have been in accordance with the new rule, since they have gone to enterprises they formerly had influence on.

Zhejiang’s new rule, analysts say, is in line with growing public suspicion that such officials might take advantage of their former government posts to benefit their new employers. In other words, is it their managerial ability or their lingering influence as former government officials that has attracted their new employers?

Analysts say that if officials join firms formerly under their influence, they might make use of official resources accumulated throughout their political careers to benefit employers, leading to an unfair competitive advantage.

Jin Shixi, director of the Zhejiang provincial government’s consultation bureau, proposed the term "option corruption." "Some officials seem to be clean in their posts, but actually have reached secret agreements with companies to which they have offered help," said Jin. "When they resign and join the firms, they get the various benefits the company has promised them."

Jin said he has found quite a lot of suspicious cases. For example, the head of a county housing department used his power to heap favors upon a company. After he left the government and joined the company, Jin told Caijing, he was paid 300,000 yuan (US＄ 37,000) a year and was given an apartment free of charge. "There are many such cases. Of course those officials have some managerial ability, but what really matters is their power and influence as government officials."

Difficult to implement

In 2003, such cases had become a focus of public attention. The top leadership of Zhejiang required relevant departments to investigate cases to see whether corruption had been involved.

Wang Jun, an official from Zhejiang provincial CPC personnel department, divides such corruption into three categories. One is the laundering of dirty money corrupt officials obtained during their official posts; one is "option corruption;" and the third is the use of lingering political resources by ex-officials to benefit the companies they serve.

Wang said such corruption is hard to ferret out. But since resigned officials are often those in key positions, people may easily suspect that secret deals are involved. The new Zhejiang rule is designed to root out such corruption and ensure clean government and fair market competition.

Before Zhejiang took the step, relevant CPC central departments had released similar regulations. The civil servant law, which was passed in late April and will take effect in 2006, stipulates further punishments for corrupt and rule-breaking officials.

However, the CPC regulations and the new law lack concrete, applicable provisions and are hard to implement. Song Shiming, professor at the National School of Administration, said Zhejiang is the first to release detailed rules to govern officials’ post-resignation commercial activities. "With the civil servant law not implemented yet, it is good for Zhejiang to take the initiative to fight corruption."

Analysts say that although this is an encouraging step, the new rule is limited by many systematic bottlenecks. Since China does not have a mature property reporting and economic auditing system for government officials, it is difficult to investigate option corruption cases.

An official from the Zhejiang CPC provincial committee told Caijing, "We feel a lot of pressure because the rule is hard to implement. Besides, other provinces do not have such regulations."

Power corrupts. With China’s political life remaining not very transparent, it is a challenge and a sensitive issue to make sure resigned officials do not use their influence to favor their new business employers. "Zhejiang’s move is necessary," said Zhen Xiaoying, vice president of the Central School of Socialism. "It can be improved in practice if new problems arise."

(US＄1 = 8.11 yuan)