China's Ingenious Local Bosses

As a curious watcher of the development experiment going on in China, I have found the ingenuity of its public sector officials quite illuminating. I stated this here on the tendency to introduce rules and regulations without much forethought or careful design. The thought that came to my mind after reading this story in the NYT relates the immense power that local bureaucrats wield in that large country. As the story states, most of these rules are arbitrarily issued by local officials who bear substantial local power and often with very little oversight and external accountability. It is therefore not surprising that the a local official in Huangping has instructed pupils to salute all passing cars while on their way to school.

Notwithstanding the fact that it is possible to ensure traffic safety in other less intrusive ways, the officials who introduced this rule are defending it as a mechanism for instilling good etiquette and for road safety of the school children. I just wonder whether road signs, some speed bumps and training on road safety for kids is insufficient. As various instances of strange regulations show, this state of affairs merely manifest the extreme levels of discretionary powers that local party officials wield. It does not occur to them to consider equally effective and less risible ways for managing public affairs.

This state of affairs is largely consistent with claims stated in a book titled, "Will the Boat Sink the Water?", which I read a couple of months ago. Its metaphorical title aside, its authors have crafted a series of stories illustrating the level of exploitation and harassment of China's peasants in one of its provinces. In all, it tells the state of affairs that many people fail to see when they merely visit Beijing and the main industrial cities. And the poignant question in my mind is that despite the unprecedented successes that China has made, it shows that very tight and accountable authority undermines the development process. Such wide and unaccountable discretion leads to regulatory overreach and silly rules that school kids like to make fun of.