Their primary sources of stress were stiff competition among officials, complicated unwritten rules, heavy workloads and moderate wages.

"Having spent 1,783 days in the realm of officialdom, I have found I am totally different from the powerful man I imagined (I would become)," said Jiang Zongfu, former deputy mayor of Linxiang City, Hunan Province.

"You probably wouldn't believe county-level Party leaders can't make ends meet with their wages, and the annual budget for a county head's official vehicle use is only 10,000 yuan (US$1,500)."

But many criticize officials' complaints.

The average civil servant working for a department directly under the Party Central Committee earns more than 10 million yuan over 30 years, China Economic Weekly magazine reported.

"Officials have satisfied their vested interests and are just showing off when they complain," a white-collar worker in Beijing, surnamed Cong, said.

"Otherwise, why would so many people try so hard to become civil servants?"

About 1.41 million candidates took the national civil servant examination on Sunday.

Zhu from CASS also said that Party and government officials had already enjoyed better social status and more social resources than others, so "inferiority might not be their true feeling".

(China Daily December 7, 2010)