CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection

September 26, 2006

The Communist Party of China and the Chinese government have attached great importance to publicizing government affairs, made it an important measure to promote, under the circumstances of building a socialist market economy, socialist democracy and prevent and crack down on corruption from its source and vigorously carried it out. Since the reform and opening-up, based on the conditions of our country and drawing on the experiences of other countries, we have persisted in the principles of strictly abiding by the law, an all-round and truthful manner, being timely and convenient for the people, unfolded creatively the work of publicizing government affairs and achieved tangible results.

The Basic Situation in the Promotion of Publicizing Government Affairs by the Chinese Government

Since the reform and opening-up, our Party and government, adapting to the requirement of the development of the situation, have made publicizing government affairs a basic system of the government in managing government affairs. The requirement of publicizing government affairs has been embodied in all the systems of the government and run through the whole process of making, implementation and supervision of administrative policies and covered all the levels of the administrative system and its related organizations. Meanwhile, publicizing government affairs has been an interactive process in both directions. It has been not only a process of making public to society information and actions by the institutions exercising administrative powers, but also a process of the participation of the public in making, implementation and supervision of administrative policies.

By and large, China's publicizing government affairs has run through three phases. The first phase was preliminary probing. In March 1988, the Second Plenary Session of the Thirteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China required the Party and governments at all levels, in building a clean government, to adopt as much as possible a system of transparent running of government affairs to facilitate supervision by the masses. In some localities, a system of publicizing procedures for handling affairs, their results and accepting supervision of the masses was adopted tentatively, which was called "double publicizing and one supervision". Later, this system was spread throughout the country. The second phase was gradual popularization. In 2000, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council jointly issued the Circular on the All-Round Adoption of the System of Publicizing Government Affairs in the Organs of State Power at the Town and Township Level in the Country, making overall arrangements for the work of publicizing government affairs in the organs of state power in the towns and townships of the country, and gradually adopted by the governments at the county (municipal) levels. The third phase was the overall development. In June 2003, the National Leading Group of Publicizing Government Affairs was set up to step up the leadership in the work of publicizing government affairs. In March 2005, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council jointly issued the Opinions on Further Promoting Publicizing Government Affairs and made overall arrangements for the work of publicizing government affairs. Thus, publicizing government affairs began to be a basic system in running government affairs by the governments at various levels and gradually became standardized in the governments at the county and township levels, was carried out in an all-round way in the governments at the municipal (prefecture) level and gradually adopted by the administrative organs at provincial and ministerial level. At present, the departments of the State Council and the local governments at different levels have, to varying degrees, carried out publicizing government affairs.

The Practice of the Chinese Government in Publicizing Government Affairs, and It's Social Effect and Experiences

Practice in the Work:

--Taking as the focus the issues of the universal concern to the people and pertaining to their immediate interests, actively unfolding the compilation of catalogues of publicizing government affairs. Currently, the central organs of state and local governments at various levels are vigorously unfolding the work of compiling catalogues of publicizing government affairs.

--In the light of the local conditions, enriching the forms of publicizing, expanding the scope of publicizing and recipient groups, increasing the real effect of publicizing government affairs. At present, the governments of towns and townships and the affiliated departments of county-level governments have universally set up bulletin boards of publicizing government affairs and issued information cards to the population. The governments above the county and prefecture (municipality) level and their affiliated departments have regularly issued government bulletins. The local governments at various levels and related public organizations have mostly set up information hotlines. More than 80 percent of the governments above the county level or government departments in the country have set up government websites and the majority of local governments above the county level and some central government departments have established administrative service centers and more than 2,100 comprehensive administrative service centers have been set up in the whole country. Seventy departments of the State Council and 31 provinces, (regions, municipalities) in the country have set up the press briefing and spokesman system.

--Setting up and improving the systems and measures and raising the level of standardization of publicizing government affairs. Currently in the country, 31 provinces (regions, municipalities) and 36 departments of the State Council have formulated, in the light of the actual conditions, stipulations on publicizing government affairs. The National Leading Group of Publicizing Government Affairs has conducted pilot work in 8 municipalities and counties of setting up and improving the system of initiative-taking and on-request publicizing, the system of evaluating publicizing government affairs and the system of accountability in the work of publicizing government affairs. The provinces (regions, municipalities) have also undertaken pilot work of setting up and improving the systems of supervision, evaluation and rewarding and punishment in publicizing government affairs. Eleven provinces (municipalities) including Beijing, Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hubei, Guangdong, Guizhou and Shaanxi have formulated local regulations on the releasing of government information, gradually putting publicizing government affairs on a legal basis.

--Stepping up supervision and examination and facilitating the implementation of the work. From the middle of July to early September of 2005, the National Leading Group of Publicizing Government Affairs organized 7 supervisory groups composed of its component units and led by leading officials of the vice-ministerial level. These groups supervised and examined the work respectively of 13 provinces (regions, municipalities). The leading organs of publicizing government affairs of the provinces (regions, municipalities) and departments of the State Council also conducted specialized examinations. According to the statistics, in 2005 alone, 23 provinces (regions, municipalities) organized specialized examinations.

Social Effects:

--Broadening the channels of participation of the people in the economic and social administration and guaranteeing their democratic rights to accessing to information, participation and supervision. The governments at various levels, in compliance with the requirement that "publicizing is the principle while non-publicizing is exception" and the laws and regulations and policies and principles, publicized to society or recipients of service within a certain scope government information and process of government actions in accordance with the prescribed procedure and time limit, except state secrets and business secrets, matter of personal privacy protected by law. Through the systems of the participation of the public, evaluation of the experts and public hearings, they enlarged the scope of mass participation and effectively ensured the rights of the citizens to information, participation and supervision.

--Intensifying the restraints and supervision of powers and facilitating the development of Party working-style and clean government. Through the promotion of publicizing government affairs, its requirement has run through the exercise of all the administrative powers: in the personnel system, adopting open exam and recruitment, public notification of officials taking up new posts, open competition in selecting officials for positions; in financial management, adopting concentrated payments by the state treasury, tendering and bidding in government projects and procurement; in transparent law enforcement, conducting public hearings, releasing information on the law enforcement procedures, process and result; in terms of clean government, implementing the systems of reporting on job and anti-corruption performance and on major matters and events. In this way, the work of the government became more transparent and the government was put under the direct supervision of the masses and corruption was prevented from its source.

--Promoting law-based government administration and accelerating the transformation of government functions. In pushing forward publicizing government affairs, carrying out transparent law enforcement system and improving the system of complaints and reporting, the administrative actions of the governments have been standardized and the level of the administrative organs and public servants in running government affairs in accordance with the law was elevated. Through enhancing the servicing function of the public vehicles such as administrative service centers and government websites, the administrative efficiency and service level have been raised and government functions have been switched to serving mainly the market players and the masses of the people.

The Main Experiences:

--In compliance with the requirement of "under the unified leadership of the Party committee, implementation mainly by the government, coordination by the general offices of the governments and supervision and examination by the departments of discipline inspection and supervision", we have further improved the leading system and working mechanism, clarified responsibilities in the work, stepped up supervision and examination and made great efforts to implement the work.

--Persisting in combining closely publicizing government affairs and the focal work of the Party and the state. We have unfolded the work through closely centering on the all-round implementation of the scientific outlook on development and strengthening the capacity of the Party to govern to serve the purpose of facilitating socialist democracy and building a harmonious socialist society.

--We have stuck to the mass line, actively guided the masses of the people in participating in publicizing government affairs in an orderly manner and further consolidated the flesh-and-blood ties between the Party and government and the masses of the people.

--We have persevered in taking publicizing government affairs as systems engineering, combined it with other work of the government, planned in an overall way and jointly pushed forward to achieve comprehensive effects.

--We have adhered to the method of taking actual conditions into account, moving forward as a whole, laying stress on key points and implementing in stages and gradually broadened the scope of publicizing government affairs and increased its depth.

The Arrangements for Publicizing Government Affairs

The Chinese government will further intensify the work of publicizing government affairs, improve the leading system and working mechanism, standardize the content of released information, enriched the forms of publicizing, set up and improve laws, regulations and rules, enhance supervision and examination and promote the in-depth development of the work of publicizing government affairs.

--Promoting in an all-round way the open and transparent operation of administrative powers and intensifying the supervision of this operation. The administrative organs at various levels should, on the basis of cleaning up and checking administrative functions and powers, compile catalogues of publicizing government affairs and draw up and publicize the diagram of work flow of each of the administrative powers in the catalogues in accordance with the procedure of operations and submit on a regular basis to the working organ of publicizing government affairs in their departments the basic situation in the operation of the administrative powers for the record and release to the public, either of its own accord or on request, the process of the operation of administrative powers so as to realize the dynamic publicizing of this process.

--Standardizing the forms and increasing the real effect of publicizing government affairs. The various localities and departments should, in the light of actual situation, continue to develop and further standardize the traditional forms of releasing information such as bulletin boards of publicizing government affairs, information kiosks, government bulletins, government white papers, etc. and promote extensively the forms for releasing information which meet the requirement of the development of modern society such as public hearings, expert consultations, news briefings and releasing of information on identified themes by the masses. They should also intensively develop e-government, step up the building of administrative service centers, construct platforms for publicizing government affairs and broaden the scope of publicizing and recipient groups to enhance the real effect of the work of publicizing government affairs.

--Enacting and improving laws, regulations, and setting up systems to raise the level of standardization and legislative development of publicizing government affairs. The basic system of publicizing government affairs should be further improved and the pilot work of setting up and improving the systems of initiative-taking and on-request publicizing, the system of evaluating publicizing government affairs and the system of accountability in the work of publicizing government affairs should be continued. Experiences in pilot work should be timely summed up and they should be popularized at appropriate times. The formulation of the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Releasing Government Information should be accelerated and a system of laws and regulations on publicizing government affairs should be gradually established and perfected so as to put publicizing government affairs on a legal basis.

-Undertaking theoretical and policy research to provide theoretical back-up for publicizing government affairs. We should keep in view the new practices and developments in publicizing government affairs and step up theoretical and policy research in order to correctly grasp the characteristics of the work of publicizing government affairs, effectively resolve the problems in current work, continually probe and summarize the laws of the work of publicizing government affairs and facilitate the development in depth of this work.

(China Development Gateway September 26, 2006)