No extravagance is good for governance

ZHANG JUN, deputy chief of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Party's top disciplinary watchdog, said recently that Party members can enjoy a good life with legal income, but they should avoid excessive spending because that's against the philosophy of the Party. A column in Beijing Youth Daily explains why strict discipline is needed:

The senior official is actually repeating the requirement of a disciplinary regulation issued by the Communist Party of China this October. No law forbids a citizen from living luxuriously. So why does Party discipline demand higher standards of its members?

Because the CPC is the ruling party and many of its members are government officials or the managers of State-owned enterprises. Their incomes, which are sufficient to support a luxurious lifestyle, mainly come from taxpayers' money.

When it becomes a trend among CPC members to pursue an excessively luxurious lifestyle, officials who need more money to support such extravagant spending will seek illicit gains in exchange for the power they hold in their hands. That was the case a few years ago, when officials competed with each other by displaying expensive status symbols.

In recent years, for example, several officials have aroused the attention of the disciplinary watchdogs because photos of them wearing very expensive watches were widely spread online. All of these officials proved to be corrupt.

It is a common practice in many countries around the world for government staff to be prohibited from leading extravagant lifestyles, as that has proved an effective way to prevent corruption. The CPC as the governing party of China can well follow their example.

Of course, a good regulation is nothing without effective implementation. It is well-nigh impossible for anti-disciplinary staff to supervise every official. Therefore, it is advisable to improve the transparency of the government and allow more people to supervise officials in their daily lives and report clues of corruption to the anti-graft agencies. Only in this way will corruption be curbed and rooted out.