China’s Bureaucrats Are Increasingly Judged on What They Do After Work
- Dozens of cities, provinces now stipulate rules for officials
- Government wants a nationwide social credit system by 2020
A member of the Chinese People's Armed Police stands guard near red flags at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
For Chinese bureaucrats, getting a promotion isn’t just tied to their performance on the job -- it’s increasingly about how well they behave in their leisure time.
Last month, the southeast city of Quanzhou became the latest to start rating civil servants’ personal behavior. Earlier Wenzhou -- a commercial hub in the east -- began equally weighting behavior at work and at home for promotions and other rewards. The coastal city Zhoushan also keeps files on the so-called social credit of public servants to assess them.