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ATD Blog

Chinese Bureaucracy Lit a Big Hit

Tuesday, January 15, 2013
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NPR’s Louisa Lim turned to authors of China’s popular “bureaucracy lit” to glean these five lessons for aspiring civil servants in China.

Lesson 1: Cultivate your connections.

Wang Xiaofang, the author of 13 bureaucracy lit books, describes why cultivating official connections is so important.

"Our officials, once they get power, they have power for life," he says. "This system of bureaucracy and power worship has become our cultural tradition. It is inside our bones."

Lesson 2: Learn to compromise, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

Another author, Wang Yuewen, describes the tightrope all aspiring civil servants must walk.

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"China is a country where the reality is so powerful that the individual feels insignificant," he says. "So anyone with a sense of morality must learn to compromise with reality and find ways of getting things done without violating their bottom line."

Lesson 3: Pick your camp well.

Wang Xiaofang  spent almost two years as secretary to the deputy mayor of Shenyang, Ma Xiangdong who was executed after being found guilty of bribery and gambling with public money. Wang spent three years under investigation before being exonerated.

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Lesson 4: Know when to step away.

Pressures on civil servants can lead to “telling lies, fakery and falsification of official statistics,” says Wang Yuewen.

Lesson 5: Take the long view.

Wang Xiaofang has finished writing three more novels, but no Chinese publisher will take them because of sensitivity surrounding the transition of power to a new generation of leaders in China. So he is working on a fourth book and waiting for the winds of change to blow.

About the Author

The Association for Talent Development (ATD) is a professional membership organization supporting those who develop the knowledge and skills of employees in organizations around the world. The ATD Staff, along with a worldwide network of volunteers work to empower professionals to develop talent in the workplace.

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