By M D Nalapat
President Xi Jinping's campaign against corruption has made big
achievements and his Belt and Road Initiative is already bearing fruit.
In fact, they may be counted among China's historic policies.
China has punished far more dishonest officials, and far more
strongly, than India. But that is reflective of the different political
systems in the two countries. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the same
view as President Xi: that improvement in administration is essential
for boosting economic performance as well as public welfare.
In India, there has been a substantial increase in penal actions
against corrupt officials since Modi took office in 2014. However,
besides such moves, Modi is also harnessing technology to make the
governance system less corrupt. An example is railway tickets and the
issuing of passports.
Now that such items are dispensed online, corruption has been
reduced. The more processes go online and become transparent, the
greater will be the degree of honesty in the implementation of policies.
China has become a global internet power, with giants such as Baidu
and Alibaba, and is, therefore, in a much better position to use digital
systems to promote speed with honesty in decision-making, and on a much
larger scale, than India, where internet coverage and bandwidth is
still below desirable standards.
Modi has initiated several changes in the administration by, for
example, beginning to recruit experts from the private sector to serve
the administration. He would also like to see "minimum government and
maximum governance" in India, and is working to achieve this in the same
way as Xi is striving to bring the Chinese governance system to 21st
century standards of performance.
In China, thanks to the strong action taken by Xi against even the
highest-level officials found guilty of corruption, some officials no
longer exhibit arrogance. They understand that their duty is to serve
the people, and not be served by the people. Increased accountability
among even high-level officials has been a welcome side effect of
China's anti-corruption campaign.
The use of technology and the deepening accountability will ensure a
better future for not only China, but also India, if the latter succeeds
in its endeavor. Certainly the road ahead will be hard and long. But it
is necessary for China and India to act if they are to fulfill the
historical task of being great nations.
Over the past three years, more has been done to bring corrupt
officials in China to justice than in past three decades. However, care
needs to be taken to ensure the drive against corruption does not result
in compromising Party and government officials' normal wellbeing. Being
human, officials cannot be infallible. So as long as the overwhelming
majority of the decisions they make are good for the country and the
people, and their mistakes are not very serious, they should get the
benefit of doubt.
Officials need to be made secure that genuine mistakes made by them,
or the problems created by circumstances beyond their control, will not
be used by higher authorities to punish them. Honest officials need to
be supported and protected not only in the good decisions they make but
even in some of the bad ones, provided they are not very too damaging.
But if officials make too many bad decisions or are slow in acting on
urgent matters, they should be assigned to execute other, less
important, tasks. It is equally important to reward efficient officials.
In this way China's anti-corruption campaign can become more productive
and convincing.
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