The

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

is the administrative system of the traditional Chinese government which consists of all levels who run the day-to-day affairs in China. The members of the civil service are selected through competitive examination. As of 2009, China has about 10 million civil servants who are managed under the Civil Service Law. Most civil servants work in government agencies and departments. State leaders and cabinet members, who normally would be considered politicians in political systems with competing political parties and elections, also come under the civil service in China. Civil servants are not necessarily members of the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

(CCP), but 95 percent of civil servants in leading positions from division (county) level and above are CCP members.

History

A professional corps of dedicate bureaucrats, akin to a modern civil service, has been an integral feature of governance in Chinese civilization for much of its history. Part of the motivation was ideological; Confucian teaching discouraged overly involved, warlike, and rowdy rulers alike, making the delegation of legislative and executive authority particularly necessary. p. 128 During the

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by th ...

(c. 1046 – 256 BC), records show that kings would send edicts encouraging local officials to identify promising candidates for office in the capital. This practice was intensified under

Emperor Wu of Han Emperor Wu of Han (156 – 29 March 87BC), formally enshrined as Emperor Wu the Filial (), born Liu Che (劉徹) and courtesy name Tong (通), was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty of ancient China, ruling from 141 to 87 BC. His reign last ...

(r. 141 – 87 BC), who standardized the selection process with the addition of question-and-answer elements on classic texts judged by a panel of scholars. This helped lay the groundwork for the

Imperial examination The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...

system that would be formed under the short-lived

Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and la ...

before being widely adopted thereafter. The examination system and the bureaucracy it engendered would remain in place in some form until the dissolution of the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

in 1911.

Mao-era cadres

The People's Republic of China did not initially maintain a formal civil service like other countries of the era. As the CCP gained ground in the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on main ...

against the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Ta ...

(KMT), it instead used dedicated Party cadres to oversee and administer territories it took over. The CCP, at the time of its victory in 1949, faced a serious shortage of qualified personnel to the fill over 2.7 million public positions needed to govern the country that had previously been occupied by KMT-affiliated officials, some of whom the Party had to allow to continue to work due to lack of suitable replacements. By the mid-1950s, China had developed a

nomenklatura The ''nomenklatura'' ( rus, номенклату́ра, p=nəmʲɪnklɐˈturə, a=ru-номенклатура.ogg; from la, nomenclatura) were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key admin ...

system modeled on the Soviet Union; there was no civil service independent of the ruling party.

Reform

Following the death of Mao Zedong and the rise of reformist Deng Xiaoping, efforts began to change the cadre system after the discord of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

so that the Party would be able to effectively carry out the modernization of China. Reforms beginning in 1984 did not decrease the approximately 8.1 million cadre positions across China, but began to decentralize their management to authorities at provincial and local levels.

Zhao Ziyang Zhao Ziyang ( zh, 赵紫阳; pronounced , 17 October 1919 – 17 January 2005) was a Chinese politician. He was the third premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 19 ...

, elected

General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party The general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party () is the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has been the paramount lead ...

in 1987, sought to transform the cadre system into a more independent body resembling a civil service. The civil service not completely subservient to the CCP, and thus reform the relationship between the Party and the Chinese state. In the aftermath of the

1989 Tiananmen Square protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

, Zhao and his allies lost their influence among Party elite and the civil service reform project was denounced by remaining leaders. Zhao's proposals were subsequently heavily modified and implemented as the "Provisional Regulations on State Civil Servants" in 1993, albeit on a much less comprehensive scale. Nevertheless, the Provisional Regulations established the first formal civil service in China since the founding of the People's Republic.

Definition

The definition of ''civil servant'' ( zh, c=公务员, p=gōngwùyuán), a term formally codified in the 2006 Civil Service Law is often ambiguous in China. Most broadly, civil servants in China are a subset of CCP cadres, the class of professional staff who administer and manage Chinese government, party, military, and major business institutions., p. 22. More specifically, the term denotes public employees in higher positions of authority; according to Yuenyuen Ang, they "form the elite strata of functionaries in the party-state hierarchy", in contrast to ''shiye renyuan'' (事业人员) or 'shiye' personnel, who are also public employees but are not considered ''gongwuyuan''. The definition of the civil service differs from that of many western countries. Civil servants are "the managers, administrators and professionals who work for government bodies," including leadership such as the Premier, state councillors, ministers, and provincial governors, among others. It excludes manual workers and many other types of cadre, such as those employed in public service units such as hospitals, universities, or state-owned enterprises, even though those positions are also paid and managed by the government. While not strictly part of the civil service, the judiciary is governed by the same personnel arrangements as the civil service.

Levels and ranking system

The current ranking system has 27 different ranks (from previously of total 15 levels) and a grade () system within each rank (at most 14 grades for each rank) to reflect seniority and performance; a combination of rank and ultimately determine pay and benefits. The 27 ranks are sub-divisions of 11 "levels". The following is a non-exhaustive list of party and state positions corresponding to their civil service rank. The list only comprises "leadership positions" (), but not civil servants who are not in leadership positions. Non-leading civil servants can be given high corresponding ranks. For example, an expert or advisor hired by the government on a long-term initiative does not manage any people or lead any organization, but may still receive a sub-provincial rank. Similarly, retired officials who take on lesser-ranked (usually ceremonial) positions after retirement would generally retain their highest rank. Occasionally, officials may hold a position but be of a higher rank than what the position indicates, for example a Deputy Prefecture-level Party Secretary who holds a full prefecture-level rank.

State Administration of Civil Service

The State Administration of Civil Service was created in March 2008 by the

National People's Congress The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China (NPC; ), or simply the National People's Congress, is constitutionally the supreme state authority and the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. With 2,9 ...

. It is under the management of the

Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of People's Republic of China is a ministry under the State Council of China which is responsible for national labor policies, standards, regulations and managing the national social security. ...

, which resulted from the merger of the Ministry of Personnel and the

. The function of the administration covers management, recruitment, assessment, training, rewards, supervision and other aspects related to civil service affairs. The administration also has several new functions. These include drawing up regulations on the trial periods of newly enrolled personnel, further protecting the legal rights of civil servants and having the responsibility of the registration of civil servants under central departments. Its establishment was part of the government's reshuffle in 2008. It aimed at a "super ministry" system to streamline government department functions.

Salary and allowances

There are three main components of civil service pay according to the 2006 pay regulation by the State Council of the People's Republic of China, namely base pay (基本工资), cost-of-living allowances (津补贴), and bonus (奖金).

References

External links

State Administration of Civil Service
(国家公务员局)
China's civil service: Aspiring mandarins

China's civil service: The strategy behind a pay rise

Civil Service Reform in China

{{Separation of powers Government of China