Party discipline: a driving force for economic development

Participants at "The Party and the World Dialogue 2015" holding a salon discussing "Political Party Governance and Local Development" by the West Lake in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province on Friday. [Photo by Wu Yan/chinadaily.com.cn]

The discipline of the Communist Party of China has been a driving force for the development of East China's Zhejiang province.

Participants at "The Party and the World Dialogue 2015" took a field trip on Friday in Zhejiang province to survey the region and see what it has achieved through the local CPC party members' self-discipline.

As a province located in the highly developed eastern China coastal area, Zhejiang had a GDP of about $650 billion in 2014, which exceeds that of Switzerland.

"We have paid a lot of attention to Party construction at a grassroot level. The advantages and results of Party construction and discipline has become a driving force of our economic development", said Ma Guangming, Deputy Secretary of Commission for Discipline Inspection of Zhejiang province.

In his introduction, Zhejiang is prosperous with almost every village having a large amount of collective assets and resources worth between 500 thousand to hundreds of millions of RMB, and as such, the power village officials have over these assets is in need of supervision.

In Zhejiang's practical context, such supervision is carried out by the villagers. Every village runs a self-organizing supervisory committee, members of which are elected by the villagers. The committee supervises the usage of the assets, resources and tendering of construction projects and the results are reported to the village Party branch.

The Party discipline also has a role to play.

Participants at "The Party and the World Dialogue 2015" visit Wusi village, Deqing county of Zhejiang province to see how the Party disciplines itself at a grassroot level, on Friday. [Photo by Wu Yan/chinadaily.com.cn]

According to the CPC discipline and state law, officials are not allowed to be engaged in or benefit from any other professions other than as civil servants, including holding positions in any associations. A civil servant is not allowed to set up any businesses. His relatives can do business only after the Party examination and approval, but the business has to be out of that official's jurisdiction limits.

"Our only income is from the government budget. Even without any other income, the declaration of personal interests and the corresponding inspection are carried out on us annually", said Xiang Lemin, Secretary of CPC Deqing county committee, in Zhejiang.

"In this new normal of strictly disciplining the Party, though there is room for improvement, I think the Party has done a good job in putting power into an institutional cage", he said.

So far, the private sector of the economy accounts for 90 percent of Zhejiang's economy. The high degree of privatization helps Zhejiang to build honest and clean politics.

"The more administrative intervention there is in ruling, the more chances there are for corruption. The higher the privatization is, the higher the possibility that officials' corruption will disappear", said Eugenio Bregolat, three times Ambassador of Spain in China.

Ma Guangming agreed with the ambassador's opinion. "Zhejiang has higher degree of marketization, more laws and legislatures are there to regulate the economy and the operation is more standard", he said, "Officials have fewer chances of rent seeking and there are relatively fewer corruption cases in Zhejiang".

A participant at "The Party and the World Dialogue 2015" talks with residents of Wusi village, Deqing county of Zhejiang province, on Friday. [Photo by Wu Yan/chinadaily.com.cn]