message to president obama on harmony governance

8/14/2019 Message to President Obama on Harmony Governance

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Message to President Obama onHarmony Governance

For the third consecutive year, Chinese have told pollsters that corruption is thebiggest blot on China's image. Last year alone, 18 minister-level officials had to stepdown because for alleged involvement in corruption. And China ranks 79 among 180countries on the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2009.

But is corruption really the biggest blot on the country's image? The above facts sayso. There is one person, however, who thinks otherwise. And Wang Liping shouldknow, because she is an associate professor in Peking University's School ofGovernment and has been dealing with different levels of government officials whoattend her classes.

But how does she know that an overwhelming majority of officials are honest? This iswhere her specialization, political psychology, comes into play. She says many ofher students complain about their misery: the hard work they do and the tough lifethey lead. They remain dedicated to their work despite the ordinary salaries theydraw. And most of them get few or no chances of taking bribes.

So why is corruption such a big issue? Because corrupt officials, who abuse power,take bribes and lead a luxurious lifestyle, have helped create the wrong image ofpublic servants in people's mind, she says. Media reports on corrupt officials and thepublic debates it sparks have a lot to do with it. The "media works on the principle ofman bites dogs". Just like a dog biting a man does not make news but a man biting adog does, honest officials are not considered newsworthy, whereas corrupt ones are.

Wang is one of the few Chinese scholars researching on political psychology. Sodevoted is she to her work that she does not use a mobile phone and often skips sad


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news because they could be unnecessary distractions. Academics and officials knowhow important her research is for some of the problems facing the country, but shesays it is far from profound. The urgent task, she says, is to improve officials' imageand enhance local governments' credibility.

Political science is nearly a century-old subject in the West, but relatively young inChina. That makes political psychology even younger, and only a few scholars areresearching on it in China. Even Wang's decision to conduct research in politicalpsychology was incidental. She decided on it when she was helping her teacher witha series of books on political sciences about 10 years ago.

In traditional political science, people participate in politics to meet the interests ofthe people or to achieve their own goals. That may be true, but Wang's subject sayspeople's psychology, too, exerts great influence on the function of a political system.So political psychology could play an important role in analyzing some political

problems and seeking their solutions, she says. It could explain, partly though, whysocial conflicts are growing despite the economic miracle of the past three decades.

Wang's research has helped her to conclude that a handful of corrupt officials havetarnished the image of the entire officialdom and raised doubts over the functioningof some local governments. People don't always think rationally. Instead manysimply form their political opinions based on their feelings. The erosion of people'strust in governments is an obvious result of such political psychology.

A survey of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, conducted in 2007, showspeople have great faith in the central government but their trust in local governmentshas declined.

"That's understandable," Wang says. "Most of the people deal with localgovernments in townships, counties and districts not the central government. Chinais a big country with the largest population in the world with many complicatedproblems. People will have complaints, many of which are targeted at localgovernments, especially against corrupt officials."

People will have less trust in local governments if they have disputes with them.Wang cites the examples of the Weng'an incident in Guizhou province in 2008 andthe Shishou incident in Hubei province last year, to explain her point. In Weng'an,30,000 people took to the streets in protest against the death of a girl, and inShishou thousands of protesters clashed with police after local authorities allegedly

tried to cover up a cook's death as a suicide.In both places, simple incidents snowballed into mass incidents. But they did nothappen "all of sudden", she says. "They happened because the local authorities hadnot paid attention to public mood for a long time. So what the governments need todo now is to put people's concern on top of their agenda."

A more deep-rooted reason behind the growing social conflicts, Wang says, isChinese people's sensitivity to equality. Over the past three decades, economic


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development has helped lift 8 million people out of poverty every year. China'seconomic development is indeed a miracle, "but we have to immediately startbridging the wealth gap and reducing inequalities".

World Bank figures show China's Gini coefficient, a measurement of income

inequality, has risen from 0.18 in 1978 to 0.47 today, surpassing the warning mark of0.4. Peoples in other countries with wide wealth gaps may be more tolerant becauseof lack of equal opportunities or religious factors, she says, but not in China.Psychologically, Chinese are more obsessed with equality. Some people indeedhave made huge amounts of money illegally in the pst three decades.

"Don't fear deficiency but fear uneven distribution. Don't worry about povertybut worry about uncertainty." This comes from Confucius and Chinese havebelieved in it for 2,500 years. This explains why people in some places aredissatisfied despite the rapid growth of the local economies.

The drastic changes in society and the weak social security system, too, haveaggravated people's sense of anxiety, which could cause more social conflicts andharm social stability.

Wang, however, is optimistic of China's future. What is needed is social reform toensure a more even distribution of resources and political reform to give people agreater say in day-to-day running of governments. These will take years, but animprovement in officials' communication skills and more people-friendlyadministrations can yield wonderful results in the short term.

For instance, when officials announce details of corruption cases, they should becautious enough not to overplay the crimes and mislead the public, she says. Andmore importantly, they need to highlight the deeds and achievements of honest andupright officials through the media.

But more than anything else, local governments have to learn how best to redresspublic grievances. They need to exercise more caution in order not to intensifyconflicts. Since people's passions can be stirred up easily, local governments haveto solve their problems sensitively. It's not wise to let the problems accumulate untilprotesters grow into large groups, sparking mass incidents.

Many local governments have blamed "a few people with ulterior motives" for incitingmass incidents. This shows they are not trained to deal with such incidents. Theyshould know that instead of appeasing the people, such irresponsible statementscould make them more suspicious and angry.

Authorities should speak on the basis of facts and be as transparent as possible,Wang says, just like they do in the developed countries. Officials in developedsocieties are well trained to release information at the appropriate time and at properintervals when something significant happens. This is something new for Chineseofficials, especially those working for local administrations. Better communicationskills will improve the officials' image and enhance people's confidence ingovernments, which could be the biggest gain of the short-term reform.


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Wang says the Henan province official who told a journalist: "Do you want tospeak for the Party or the people?" is an apt example of a bad communicator.Officials should never make such provocative remarks. Instead, local"governments need to encourage more tolerance, friendship and love insociety (because) eventually they will help build a harmonious society ".

(China Daily 01/28/2010 page9)

message to president obama on harmony governance

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