Changing railway bureaus into companies good start to reform

ALL 18 OF THE LOCAL BUREAUS affiliated to the former Ministry of Railways, which was transformed into China Railway Corporation in March four years ago, have now been converted into companies. Beijing News comments:

Changing the railway bureaus into companies is only the first step of reform. But the transformation from being government departments to corporate entities is an important one.

The reform is expected to improve the CRC’s efficiency, management and services.

As some insiders have disclosed, the corporation is engaged in intensive and wide restructuring efforts, and it is seeking employees’ understanding of and support for the changes.

This means it is time for the huge number of railway employees to bid farewell to the “iron bowl” and the sense of privilege they enjoy — for about half a century, working for the railways has provided employees with cradle-to-tomb welfare.

The railway employees should realize that the corporate reform gives them more autonomy and freedom to make better use of the market and their strengths, which was not possible previously for the ministry or bureaus.

Reportedly, the CRC is negotiating with Alibaba, Tencent, SF Express and some other big-name private corporations on possible cooperation, showing that the decision-makers in the company have opened their minds to reform.

Statistics show the CRC has rights to use more than 300 million square meters of land nationwide. And the government will continue to invest heavily in the construction of high-speed railways and the upgrading of old railways. If it can make good use of its potential and advantages, while making breakthroughs in its internal institutional reforms, the CRC has enough reasons to guarantee its employees bright prospects.

Ren and his colleague, Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero, have announced the operation was a success. However, as Ren admitted in a later interview, there is no standard for the “success” of such an operation.

Besides, many doctors and medical professionals said they have only reconnected the severed blood vessels, tissues and nerves. There is no way to test whether signals or blood can pass through the re-connected channels.

More important, the idea of head transplants has met fierce opposition in the West because of the ethical dilemmas it poses. In many Western countries, such head transplants, even if done on corpses, must pass a review by ethical commissions to get approval. Yet the operation has already been done in China and we have no idea whether any approval was sought or given.

Canavero said their next step is to do head transplants on living humans. That should arouse our attention. We hope the medical authorities will review this plan.

Some research programs that meet complicated legal, ethical and moral obstacles overseas often prefer to do tests in China, because the supervision in the country is not as strict.

Science needs tolerance in order to make progress. However, before doing such procedures, we need strict evaluations to make sure they do not cross the moral and ethical bottom lines.

A good example of this is cloning. Scientists have long successfully cloned sheep and cows, but it remains a forbidden zone to clone humans. Head transplants, if done on living humans, present identity dilemmas.