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Li Jing

Premier Li Keqiang has urged ministries to act on the latest round of external assessments of their performance, saying they offered “real” solutions to problems.
But given they lacked legal force, the reports could be ignored by lower-level officials, one expert warned.
The assessments examined how ministries handle policies to reduce poverty and promote innovation, entrepreneurship and public services. Each was several hundred pages long.
READ MORE: Chinese premier lashes out at foot-dragging officials over reform failures
“Ministers, please take away these three thick reports and follow up the identified issues concerning your ministry,” Li was quoted as saying in a government statement about a State Council meeting held on Wednesday.
He was also said to have given out scorecards on ministers’ performances.
The reviews are carried out by seven government-linked groups, including the China Association of Science and Technology, the Development Research Centre of the State Council and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  
Li said the reports had not been reviewed by local or central government departments. Their conclusions were therefore “quite real” and they offered feasible solutions.
Hu Xingdou, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said these “third-party” reviews could help Li gain a clearer insight into the performance of local officials, who tended to gloss over shortcomings and exaggerate accomplishments.
“A better understanding of the real situation will at least help Li to make better decisions,” Hu said.
But the reviews did not have legal force, and whether ministries or local governments took them seriously remained to be seen, he said.
The third-party assessments began in 2013, when the State Council asked the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce to examine how government departments were encouraging private sector investment.
The programme was expanded last year to include other government-affiliated organisations as assessors.
Li strongly criticised local governments who “played tricks” in implementing the central government’s calls to reduce red tape, and said he would severely punish those guilty of such practices.
 
 


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Reviews by outside groups offer real insight into problems in officialdom, Li Keqiang says
