No more ‘private vote’ for China’s top leaders in Communist Party’s new hiring and firing rules
The Communist Party’s top body for personnel affairs has rolled out new rules on hiring and firing senior officials, highlighting collective decision-making by party cells instead of following leaders’ top picks, state media reported on Monday.
The new rules appear aimed at breaking a decades-old practice of leaders indicating their preferences by circling names or underlining key sentences on documents before distributing them for consultation, according to a Hong Kong-based China watcher.
Citing regulations from the Central Organisation Department, People’s Daily reported that “neither consulting certain persons’ opinions, nor asking leaders to circle certain names are allowed to replace decisions made by collective discussion among party organisations about the appointment and dismissal of officials”.
The rules also stipulate that “leaders of a party cell are not allowed to override the organisation”, underscoring opposition to decisions made by individuals or small groups without consulting others’ opinion.
Hong Kong-based China watcher Johnny Lau Yui-siu said similar instructions had been issued since the 1980s “but yielded no fruit for years”. The key point of the exercise, Lau said, was to consolidate such regulations.
He added that the latest rules were not aimed at low to medium ranking officials, but senior cadres working close to top party leaders in Beijing.
Top party leaders have long used tacit ways to signal their endorsement ahead of consultations. The practice dates to the 1960s and 1970s, when Marshal Lin Biao pledged absolute loyalty to Mao Zedong, saying: “It’s essential to follow Chairman Mao ... If Chairman Mao circles [a document], I circle it.”