Official frugality vital for high-quality development

The central authorities have recently issued revised regulations on promoting frugality and opposing extravagance in Party and government organs, and issued a circular requiring all departments to strictly follow and implement them.

The revised regulations require officials at various levels to strengthen the conservation of resources, and strictly prohibit vanity projects. To that end, power holders must establish a rational view of political achievements and performance, and fully and accurately implement the new development concept.

They must avoid extravagance and excessively raising debt to seek short-term growth, so that limited financial resources can be used to promote key reforms for high-quality development, and do practical things of substantial benefit to the people.

In the process, they are obliged to ensure that the decisions and arrangements of the Communist Party of China leadership on high-quality development are strictly and faithfully implemented.

According to the circular, all Party and government organs should take the lead in living a frugal life. By strictly implementing the revised regulations, they are expected to promote an atmosphere of opposing waste throughout the whole of society.

This represents the latest moves of the central authorities in the ongoing Party-wide education campaign to implement the "eight-point rules" on improving work conduct that was launched in March.

The Party leadership launched the "eight-point rules" in December 2012, with the aim of curbing extravagance. The set of rules later expanded into a Party-wide initiative for all members to improve their conduct. After more than a decade of implementation, the set of rules have been hailed as a "game changer" in China's governance.

Notably, an article by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, on implementing the guiding principles of the central Party leadership's "eight-point rules", which was published on Friday, emphasizes that good work conduct is critical to the survival of a governing party, stresses a strict approach in implementing the "eight-point rules", and requires leading officials at all levels to take the lead in setting a good example.

The article further points out that efforts to strengthen Party and government conduct must align with the key requirement of maintaining a close bond with the people, guard against any slackness in the process, and remain vigilant against new covert forms of misconduct, to prevent any resurgence of unnecessary spending.

The implementation of the "eight-point rules" is actually an important endeavor for the Party to earn public trust in the new era, requiring consistent and persevering efforts in this regard. Xi emphasized the vital role of maintaining the Party's tradition of hard work, diligence and frugality, which is related to the image of the Party, and the people's support for the Party and State cause.

The revised regulations should be strictly implemented and the "eight-point rules" should be followed not only during the Party-wide education campaign that is scheduled to run through late July, but also beyond, becoming a norm for all Party members.

To that end and to make the rules and regulations "grow teeth and thorns", as a commentary of People's Daily said, the authorities need to establish an effective supervision and inspection mechanism that can enable society, not only the watchdog departments, to better supervise the practices of power so that relevant malpractices can be spotted in time and any problematic Party members and officials can be held accountable for their misbehavior accordingly.

The supervision of the public can help prevent the wasting of government money, and be an effective deterrent to potential breakers of the regulations and rules.