Antsy Officials Get A New Xi Message: To Err Is Human
The Wall Street Journal|January 21, 2025
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is intensifying a war on corruption that has punished officials in record numbers-with the side effect of leaving many unwilling to act for fear of punishment.
Chun Han Wong
Antsy Officials Get A New Xi Message: To Err Is Human

To help his bureaucrats rediscover their mojo and revive a stagnating economy, Xi is also promoting the message that some mistakes are acceptable. His decree to the Communist Party: Enforcing strict discipline shouldn't fuel a climate of fear that saps the can-do spirit that once helped power China's economic rise.

The approach is to "combine strict control with loving care," Xi has said, to "encourage cadres to forge ahead and be enterprising."

The party elite approved a new economic plan that embedded Xi's directive, the "Three Differentiates," which calls for differentiating well-meaning officials who make innocent errors from those who willfully break the rules.

Xi's campaign seeks to tackle a key challenge in his top-down leadership of the world's second-largest economy: how to wield decisive control over a vast bureaucracy without stifling the local dynamism.

As part of the push for calibrated clemency, authorities have also pledged to curb false accusations against bureaucrats-a phenomenon that grew amid Xi's purges-and encourage remorseful offenders to make amends by working harder. State media meanwhile called for reviving a sense of mission among officials who might otherwise stay passive to avoid trouble.

This story is from the January 21, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

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This story is from the January 21, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.