Zhong County's Cadre
Feng Junqi Sociology Department
Directed by Professor Zheng Yefu
ABSTRACT
Under the background of summarizing and reflecting upon the Reform and Opening up in
the past 30 years, this research, with the method of analyzing the career of the political
elites, to do a multi-level and -angle investigation of their changes and promotion since
1978,and mainly seeks to provide a panorama of Zhong County cadres and their complete
political career.
The system of constituents of the cadres of Zhong County, consisting of the Deputy
Section, the Section, the Deputy Division, and the Division, is like a pyramid. 60% of
the cadres come from rural families, 20% from cadre families; and 90% are male,
10% female.
Their ages range from 35 to 55 years old. Those of them who received full-time schooling
were the unprecedented "generation of the secondary school", of whom quite a large part
studied both arts and sciences, the others studying only the former or the latter. On the
contrary, those who got their degrees on-job mostly have Bachelor’s or Master’s degree,
majoring mostly in arts. Generally speaking, the cadres are the local elite, with most
of those below the Division hailing from Zhong County, and those above the Deputy Division
basically from other parts of Beishan City than Zhong County. It is obvious, however, that
their birthplaces are not evenly distributed, as can be seen from the prominent phenomenon
of a specific colony of elite cadres originating from the same place.
In general, there are mainly three sources of the cadres in Zhong County: graduates
from the junior college and the secondary school, military cadres who switched to jobs,
and others who were admitted from the society. Basically, the principle for acceptation
was their ability to put knowledge into use and whether the candidates’ majors matched
the posts applied for. Meanwhile, such social resources as GuanXi also played an important
role. After having got the first posts, most of them went through a period of growth into
professionals. Besides, in the transference of cadres, it can be clearly seen that the
offsprings of cadres never falied to get a post. The result of the transference among
departments turned out to be that the amount of resources of cadres were more often than
not proportional to the quality of the specific department.
The devolopment of the cadres in Zhong County can be classified into two sorts, namely,
mixed and single pattern, the former being more common, which illustrates that their
transference is in positive poportion to their promotion.
Also, the course of careers shows
its institutionalization and routiniztion, that is to say, their careers were roughly
determined by the cadres’ posts and ages then. From the age intervals among those holding
the posts, it can be inferred that it needs 8 years to get promoted to the Deputy Section,
3 years to go on to the Section, then 7 years to the Deputy Division, and lastly, 7 years
to the Division. The pattern of promotion is apparently government-party spiral:
the cadres
worked first in the government system, then were promoted into the party system, and then
into the former and the latter alternatively,
which was the result of the institutionalized
separation of the party and the government.
The institutions where they work and the posts that they hold wield a major influence
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on the cadres’ careers. In particular, the key institutions and posts, where only senior
cadres work, have become the cradle of cadres.
In Zhong County, the key institutions include
the County Commission Office, the Organization Department, the Commission for Discipline
Inspection, and the League County Commission, etc. which belong to the Party-System. the
Government Office, the Bureau of Forestry, the Bureau of Education, the Bureau of
Agriculture, and so on, which belong to the Government-System.the Public Security
Institutions and the Key Towns. The key posts are the Secretary of the County Party
Commission, the County Magistrate, the Deputy Secretary of the County Party Commission,
the Executive Vice County Magistrate, the Secretary of the Commission for Discipline
Inspection, the Secretary of the Organization Department, the Director of the County
Commission Office, the Secretary of the Party Commission of Towns, the Town Mayor, the
Secretary of the League County Commission, the Director of the Office, the Assistant, and
so on. In particular, the last two are the major sources of cadres,
hence the characteristic
phenomena of the Secretary of the Office and that of the Assistant in the cadres’ careers.
Since 1978, Zhong County has implemented an evalution system of cadres according to
their political achievements, which aims at their encouragement. With the assessment of
core tasks and goals, it has initiated the cadres into a competition of promotion-oriented
development, which has been one of the institutional factors of the huge changes of the
county in the past 30 years. Assessing the cadres solely through their political
achievements, however, has led inevitably to the problem of fake achievements.
As it evolved,
the political achievements evaluation system has resulted in a town elite group in the
county, and a "double-strength" model of the promotion of the Secretary of the Town Party
Commission. Based on economic development and absolute performance, the model makes
absolute, not relative performance, and composite, instead of economic index the
explanation of cadres’ promotion, but the centrality of economy bases the political
achievements evaluation system upon economic development and index.
GuanXi play an important role in the cadres’careers, sometimes a determining one. In
the case of Zhong county, they are in the major part relations within the family, with
nominal kins, with fellows, classmates, and comrades in arms, etc. and the phenomenon of
political family is especially prominent. In the selection and appointment of cadres, the
democratic recommendation increases the importance of GuanXi in the cadres’ careers, and
contributes to the formation of the loop model which involves both expanding the network
of voters and manoeuvring GuanXi. At the same time, the cadres’ promotion is the result
of the interation of their ability, social relations, economy, the leaders’ and the
masses’ appreciation, opportunities and qualifications; it is a key leap in their careers,
and results in the reinforcement of the hidden step and the pattern of "over-competition"
in their careers. In the Chinese political ecology, a well-funtioning political system
entails the organic combination of official and informal relations, in which the latter
acts as lubricant and makes wholesome supplement to the official system.
Key words: the constituents of cadres; the sources of cadres; the cradle of cadres;
political achievements; GuanXi