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Luxury hotel welcomes delegates to meet on clean, frugal politics
By Wang Yong |
April 8, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
PREMIER Wen Jiabao warned on March 25 that bureaucratic profligacy and formalism will cause a degeneration in morality and politics.
"It's more than just a waste of money, it's a form of corruption," Wen told a State Council conference on clean and frugal politics, Xinhua reported on Tuesday.
Indeed, many government officials know it's corrupt to put illegal gains into their own pockets. They don't seem to know it's also corrupt to squander taxpayers' money. Last week, I went to a scenic city near Shanghai and saw a banner blazing over the entrance to a luxury hotel - it welcomed local cadres who were staying there to attend a conference on clean and frugal politics.
The conference organizers did not deem it a crime to spend profligately on an event supposed to promote the spirit of frugality. Wouldn't it have been better just to hold a televised meeting?
Profligacy, hedonism, vanity and a mania for construction virtually defined every dynastic fall in old, feudal China, Wen observed. "Every coin we spend comes from the sweat of the people," he said. "We must not waste."
I was born in the 1960s and educated throughout the 1970s to live a frugal and honest life. Chinese society at that time, however poor materially, was largely frugal and clean. Getting rich was not considered glorious, as it is today.
The tide turned in the 1980s, when a market economy set in and the whole nation discovered a convenient source of growth in a construction binge.
Construction of luxury offices, hotels, commercial and residential complexes not only satisfies the hedonism of a relatively few corrupt officials, but also stimulates the nation's economic growth like nothing else.
In ancient dynasties, the mania for construction was largely confined to a few royal, bureaucratic and business elites. Their personal obsession to build was seldom part of an economic growth story. Ancient China thrived mostly on agriculture and trade.
In contrast, construction today is part of the so-called "China miracle." A government-sponsored construction mania - notably in selling precious arable land for luxury real estate projects - is the very source of economic life for many otherwise cash-strapped localities.
To prevent yet another fall, modern China needs more than a moral reprimand over extravagance and waste. It needs to discover a new path to economic growth outside the box of construction that accompanies reckless and ugly urbanization.
The late leader Deng Xiaoping warned in 1984 that China's stability and prosperity hinges upon the countryside, home to most of the country's population. It's no use to just spruce up cities, he cautioned.
Have we heeded Deng's words of caution? Have we gone too far in constructing city after city at the expense of the countryside?
"It's more than just a waste of money, it's a form of corruption," Wen told a State Council conference on clean and frugal politics, Xinhua reported on Tuesday.
Indeed, many government officials know it's corrupt to put illegal gains into their own pockets. They don't seem to know it's also corrupt to squander taxpayers' money. Last week, I went to a scenic city near Shanghai and saw a banner blazing over the entrance to a luxury hotel - it welcomed local cadres who were staying there to attend a conference on clean and frugal politics.
The conference organizers did not deem it a crime to spend profligately on an event supposed to promote the spirit of frugality. Wouldn't it have been better just to hold a televised meeting?
Profligacy, hedonism, vanity and a mania for construction virtually defined every dynastic fall in old, feudal China, Wen observed. "Every coin we spend comes from the sweat of the people," he said. "We must not waste."
I was born in the 1960s and educated throughout the 1970s to live a frugal and honest life. Chinese society at that time, however poor materially, was largely frugal and clean. Getting rich was not considered glorious, as it is today.
The tide turned in the 1980s, when a market economy set in and the whole nation discovered a convenient source of growth in a construction binge.
Construction of luxury offices, hotels, commercial and residential complexes not only satisfies the hedonism of a relatively few corrupt officials, but also stimulates the nation's economic growth like nothing else.
In ancient dynasties, the mania for construction was largely confined to a few royal, bureaucratic and business elites. Their personal obsession to build was seldom part of an economic growth story. Ancient China thrived mostly on agriculture and trade.
In contrast, construction today is part of the so-called "China miracle." A government-sponsored construction mania - notably in selling precious arable land for luxury real estate projects - is the very source of economic life for many otherwise cash-strapped localities.
To prevent yet another fall, modern China needs more than a moral reprimand over extravagance and waste. It needs to discover a new path to economic growth outside the box of construction that accompanies reckless and ugly urbanization.
The late leader Deng Xiaoping warned in 1984 that China's stability and prosperity hinges upon the countryside, home to most of the country's population. It's no use to just spruce up cities, he cautioned.
Have we heeded Deng's words of caution? Have we gone too far in constructing city after city at the expense of the countryside?
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