Supervisory commissions tackle graft from the root

The just-concluded 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China included “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” in the Party Constitution. As part of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s report to the 19th Party Congress on behalf of the CPC Central Committee, Xi’s thought shows the political wisdom of the central leadership with Xi Jinping as the core.

An important part of Xi’s thought is the enhancement of Party leadership over all aspects of society to advance law-based governance in all corners of China and to help the people run the country with commitment to the organic unity of Party leadership.

The idea of extending the supervisory commissions, piloted in Beijing municipality, Shanxi and Zhejiang provinces, to different parts of the country corroborates the principle of overall Party leadership in all aspects of society. Once the supervisory commissions are established nationwide, they will help unify the principles of overall Party leadership, the people running the country and the rule of law into one organic whole.

First, the emphasis will be on Party leadership in supervisory commissions. In the past, various levels of the Party’s disciplinary bodies mainly conducted the investigations against Party officials suspected of corruption. And if enough evidence was collected against Party officials suspected of corruption, they were made to face the judiciary.

Still, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Party’s highest anti-corruption watchdog, and disciplinary bodies at different levels are Party organs so their decisions used to be effective against only Party members. In some cases, when a suspected official was not a Party member, the CPC’s disciplinary bodies could not exercise any power.

Now, the supervisory commissions will be under the Party’s leadership and, hence, will have the power to probe the cases of any official, irrespective of whether he or she is a Party member, suspected of corruption. In this way, the Party’s leadership in all aspects of society will be realized.

Second, the principle of the people running the country has also been emphasized. The fact that supervisory commission leaders are elected by people’s congresses at the same level and are under the supervision of people’s congresses reflects the principle of democracy.

Democracy in China is practiced mainly through two channels: the election of various levels of Party leaders and committee members by Party congresses; and the election of different levels of governmental officials and judiciary chiefs by people’s congresses. Now, the supervisory commissions will combine the two channels of promoting democracy.

This move is crucial, because the determination of the Party leadership and the active participation of the people both are needed for the success of the anti-corruption campaign. That many corrupt officials faced justice because the people provided the clues against them to the authorities shows that only with the joint efforts of the Party and the people can the anti-corruption drive succeed.

Third, the supervisory commissions will help strengthen the rule of law. Xi said the practice of shuanggui, an intra-Party disciplinary action that requires a Party member under investigation to cooperate with the interrogating officials at a designated place and designated time, will be replaced by detention of suspects, in order to bring the interrogation process under the rule of law. The promulgation of a national supervisory law will strengthen the legal procedure of regulating the probes against officials suspected of corruption, as it will specify the time length and place needed for the probe, as well as the rights the suspects enjoy during the process.

Therefore, the supervisory commissions, once they start operating nationwide, will strike corruption at the root. Corruption emerges because of a lack of strict supervision over power, so we must strengthen the supervision over power. As such, the supervisory commissions will combine the Party’s leadership, the people’s participation and the rule of law to fight corruption, and help eliminate corruption from the root. The author is a professor at the Zhou Enlai School of Governance, Nankai University, Tianjin.

One key reason is that the technological innovations that destroy some existing jobs also create new ones. While new technologies reduce demand for low- to middle-skill workers in routine jobs, such as clerical work and repetitive production, they also raise demand for higherskill workers in technical, creative and managerial fields. A recent analysis estimates that new tasks and job titles explain about half of the recent employment growth in the US.

Given this, the evolution of work should be viewed as a process of dynamic adjustment, not as a fundamentally destructive process that we should seek to slow. To erect barriers to innovation, such as taxes on robots, which some have proposed as a way to ease the pressure on workers, would be counterproductive. Instead, measures should focus on equipping workers with the higher-level skills that a changing labor market demands, and supporting workers during the adjustment process.

So far, education and training have been losing the race with technology. Shortages of the technical and higher-level skills demanded by new technologies are partly responsible for the paradox of booming technology and slowing productivity growth in advanced economies: the shortage of skills has constrained the diffusion of innovations. Imbalances between supply and demand have also fueled income inequality, by increasing the wage premiums that those with the right skills can command.

To address these shortcomings, education and training programs must be revamped and expanded. As the old career path of “learn, work, retire” gives way to one of continuous learning — a process reinforced by the aging of many economies’ workforces — options for re-skilling and lifelong education must be scaled up.

This will demand innovations in the content, delivery, and financing of training, as well as new models for public-private partnerships. At the same time, countries must facilitate workers’ ability to change jobs through reforms to their labor markets and social safety nets. This means shifting the focus from backward-looking labor-market policies, which seek to protect workers in existing jobs, to future-oriented measures, such as innovative insurance mechanisms and active labor-market policies.

Moreover, social contracts based on formal long-term employer-employee relationships will need to be overhauled, with benefits such as retirement and health care made more portable and adapted to evolving work arrangements, including the expanding “gig” economy.

On both of these fronts, France is setting a positive example. Early this year, the country launched a portable “personal activity account”, which enables workers to accrue rights to training across multiple jobs, rather than accumulating such rights only within a specific position or company.

Technological change will continue to pose momentous challenges to labor markets across economies, just as it has in the past. But, with smart, forward-looking policies, we can meet those challenges head-on — and ensure that the future of work is a better job. The author, a former director of development economics at the World Bank, is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Project Syndicate

CAI MENG / CHINA DAILY