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Former Party Theorist on China’s Political System’s Faults

On December 7, Caixin published a public speech that Yu Keping (俞可平), a former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official and theorist gave at Beijing University. The topic was "Six Political Axioms that China’s Political System Violated."  

The first axiom was "A power holder only recognizes accountability to those who give him the power." Yu argued that the CCP has claimed officials are the servants of the general public. In reality, officials are only submissive to their bosses and treat the general public as if they are nobody. That is because officials are appointed by their bosses. Yu hinted at a solution. If the public elects these officials, they will have to serve the public.

Yu also pointed out other areas that violate the political axioms: the government is inefficient because there are too many agencies in charge of the same thing; lower level officials dare not tell the truth when providing policy feedback to the upper level officials who gave them the policy order; the number one leader at each level tends to become corrupt because there is no checks and balances system to keep them in line; subordinate officials tend to yield to their bosses because they have lower rights and benefits and perceive they are lower; the income levels are quite different between officials who at the same rank but work in different agencies and different regions.

Yu served as the Deputy Director of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau that focuses on ideology and theory research. He resigned from that post to become a political science professor at Beijing University. Caixin introduced Yu as a "famous scholar and political scientist" and mentioned that his article "Democracy Is a Good Thing" had resulted in a lot of discussion in China.

Source: Caixin, December 7, 2015
http://opinion.caixin.com/2015-12-07/100882641.html