1、 1 The Power of the Public Eye BAIMIAO is an out-of-the-way township in Bazhou Dis-trict of Bazhong City,Sichuan Province.Linked only bya country road to the outside world,it nevertheless en-gineered a politically transforming experience by usinginformation technology to create public watchdogs on g
2、overn-ment spending.In February 201o,Baimiao started to make itsbudgets and expenditures public via its government website.Ev-ery item - a RMB 1.5 letter pad,a bottle of wine tagged RMB 88or a meal of RMB 1,269 - is clearly recorded.This act triggeredsome sizzling debates in the Chinese netizenry an
3、d the unknowntownship was soon in the midst of a storm of public opinion. Baimiao is a typical poverty-stricken area; in 2009,the netper capita income was only RMB 3,393,and fully 95.5 percentof its 11,000 strong population are farmers cultivating less than400 square meters per capita.Still it was s
4、ophisticated enoughto benefit from the widespread controversy it generated. Show Us the Money In 2002,Zhang Yingshang was appointed secretary of theBaimiao 2 governments discipline inspection commission.Hiscontact with locals forced on him the reality of the widening gapbetween residents increasing
5、demands for more oversight ofgovernment operations and the backward nature of local infra-structure for doing so.Moreover,a handful of corrupt officialshad undermined the local governments credibility.“On seeingus officials leave a restaurant,some people would point at us;they believed public funds
6、footed our bill,“ says Zhang.Suchcensure made him feel wronged,but also started him thinking. In 2005,Bazhong City put forward a new motto: “Build agovernment in the sunlight.“ It set down regulations for publicaccess to information on government affairs.Overseeing theimplementation of the decree,Zh
7、ang Yingshang,who by thetime had been promoted to be head of the township,noticed thatmaking government affairs public is the best solution for resolv-ing contradictions between common and insider views aboutpolicies and needs. In 2008,Zhang Yingshang was enrolled in a graduate pro-gram at the Party
8、 School of Bazhong City,where he met WangGuoqi,the vice-president of the school and deputy director ofthe organization department of the Bazhong CPC committee.Atthat time,Wang was investigating the best methods of disclos-ing government spending to the public.“As regards governmentspending,what peop
9、le are most 3 concerned about is whetherthere is corruption involved,“ explained Wang.“Once every-thing is put on the table confidence in the government can berestored.“ In their conversations the two men happily fund that theywere on the same page over officially-driven transparency forpublic funds
10、,which both believe is a route to wider reformsof the political system.“After some debate we decided to takeBaimian Township in that direction.People deserve to knowwhether public funds have been misappropriated or not,“ said Zhang Yingshang. Besides website access to records,the township prints out
11、 theexpenditures and posts the list at government buildings wherepeople,and in particular those not technologically inclined,cancome to cheek them at any time.Over the past year financialexpenditures have been made public every month,and the at-tentive will have found changes in the content.For exam
12、ple,entertainment in January 2oo9 accounted for more than half ofthe total government expenditure for that month; one year laterit stood at only one percent of the government spending for themonth.“This is a testimony to the power of public oversight,“says Zhang.“The expenditures in 2OlO shrank more
13、 than RMB3o,ooo from the previous year,“ which is not insignificant for atownship government that ran on a budget of RMB 120,000 in2010. 4 Where to Point the Light The practice adopted by Baimiao Township aroused nation-wide attention,and appears to be viewed favorably by most.InJune 02010,Bazhou Di
14、strict decided to achieve its “make govern-ment affairs public“ goal in full,extending the initiative to the48 townships and three urban neighborhood offices under itsjurisdiction.Building a “government in the sunlight“ amountedto a major project,and one that people pinned their hopes forrelated ref
15、orms on.The model has produced satisfactory resultsbut there are places to improve and perfect. Some township governments in the district dont go to thesame lengths as Baimiao in itemizing their spending,groupingit under broader items such as office outlay,entertainment andtraveling expenses and off
16、ering no breakdown.The excuse is theposter has no space for long lists. This pretext obviously didnt work for townships like Qing-jiang,that runs an offficial website where space is infinite.StillQingjiang withdrew from disclosing financial details on itswebsite; the latest update was posted last Oc
17、tober.When inqui-ries were made,the reply given was that the person doing 5 theuploading had resigned.Asked if the work would resume,the of-ficial at the other end of the line couldnt give a definite answer. About such back-sliding,officials of the district governmentpoint out that people make a pri
18、ority of their immediate inter-ests,such as policies supporting agriculture,farming subsidiesand other benefits to farmers.In response,the district highlightspolicy implementation and allowance distribution in the govern-ment affairs it makes public.And it believes it has done a greatjob in this res
19、pect.Still,some people nurse strong suspicionsabout the transparency drive.Arguments against it take variousforms.For example,that it makes lithe sense for an economi-eally backward region chronically joshing with deficits,becausea light purse makes corruption unlikely.Some eomplain theexperiment ha
20、s put the district into the uncomfortable positionof being in the national spotlight,putting every move by the lo- cal government under intense scrutiny all over the country.Stillothers wonder whether government fiscal data will somehowbetray state secrets when the practice is extended to all of the
21、nations local governments. Wang Guoqi feels puzzled by the controversy generated bythe practice,defending what Biamiao does as “not only in accor-dance 6 with policy and regulations,but sanctioned by local sup-port.“Why is there so much opposition in practice?“ asks Wang.The Devil in the Details Act
22、ually,Baimiao was not the first to forge bravely ahead withtransparency measures; but it was the first to do it in enough de-taft to prove risky.Since 2008 a number of township and villagegovernmeflts in Siehuan,Hainan and Zhejiang provinces haveopened their books,but the reason Baimiao stirred up t
23、he con-troversy lies in the unprecedented level of detail in expenditurereports. “If every expense is legal,what harm is there in people know-ing of it? Why are people unwilling to accept something that istheoretically sound? Is it because doing so might violate someunspoken rules or interfere with
24、hidden agendas?“ asks Wang.“Itis in the interests of any potentially corrupt persons who exercisepower and control money that there be no monitoring,of course;they can spend it as they will.Once there is monitoring,theremust be restraint,and that is an anathema to such parties.“ At a meeting of fina
25、ncial officers last year,Li Zhongbin,Partysecretary of Baizhong City,advised participants that only fullpublic disclosure can eliminate misapprehensions about 7 gov-ernment spending,estrangement of citizenry,conflicts amongstakeholders,and corruption in office.Wang Guoqi is impressedby Lis arguments
26、.“Although there are competing theories andsystems for making disclosures,and the case often happens thatsome local governments arent up to making a thorough job of it,the trend is positive and we need only give it time.In the past wedidnt even mention transparency,but now we dare to do it.Thisin itself is progress,“ affirms Wang.
