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Journal Title: China Information
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860326CIN
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X19860326
China Information
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DOI: 10.1177/0920203X19860326
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china
INFORMATION
Social Accountability
under Authoritarianism:
Public Supervision of Local
Governments in China
Zhuang Meixi
Fudan University, China
Abstract
The uneven implementation of innovations in social accountability across China
remains an empirical puzzle. Most existing research focuses on the procedural design
of participatory mechanisms but does not discuss how they came about in the first
place. Drawing on fieldwork data from several sites that experiment with the public
supervision of local governments, this article examines the contextual factors that affect
the emergence of social accountability innovations in China. This article argues that
for an innovation in social accountability to emerge successfully, initiatives between
the local state and citizens must be aligned. Three factors are found to be crucial: (1)
social momentum for accountability; (2) the presence of backers at the elite level; and
(3) an authentic opening for mobilization. The empirical findings reported here have
important implications for the study of social accountability innovation in China and for
participatory reforms more generally.
Keywords
social accountability, participatory reform, local innovations, citizen participation,
public supervision
Social accountability refers to the ability of societal forces to supervise, monitor, and over-
see government agencies and officials. It can be viewed as a policy initiative for controlling
the arbitrary use of state power by engaging collective actors in civil society.1 Social account-
ability compels public officials to be directly answerable to citizens. It relies on a vertical yet
non-electoral form of public participation to enhance government accountability and trans-
parency. The implementation of innovations in social accountability is widespread,
Corresponding author:
Zhuang Meixi, School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road,
Yangpu District, Shanghai 200433, China.
Email: zhuangmeixi@fudan.edu.cn
0010.1177/0920203X19860326China InformationMeixi
research-article2019
Article
2 China Information 00(0)
particularly in developing countries and regions in Latin America and Africa, with these
innovations supplementing democratic elections.
China appears to be an unlikely host for experiments with social accountability. The
country is governed by a Leninist authoritarian regime under the leadership of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Theoretically, to maintain power the CCP only requires
a vertical hierarchy of bureaucratic accountability to ensure that subordinates comply
with their superiors. Nevertheless, some managed forms of grass-roots participation
have been rolled out in the past two decades. Innovations include deliberative consulta-
tion, public supervision, and social assessments of government. This has led researchers
to explore the oxymoron of authoritarian accountability.2
As expected, these local innovations have stimulated heated scholarly debate centred
around the compatibility of authoritarianism with accountable governance. However,
most scholars are drawn to the black-and-white dichotomy of whether social accounta-
bility exists in China. They largely ignore the fact that even within an authoritarian state,
there are great variations across individual cases. Some cases have turned out to be
exceptionally successful, such as deliberative consultation in the city of Wenling,3 while
most others have ended up as either window dressing or an instrument of policy imple-
mentation.4 Why are some local cases more successful than others? What factors condi-
tion the success and failure of social accountability innovations in China?
In examining the rise of social accountability innovations in China, most researchers
tend to give disproportionate attention to the procedural design of participatory mecha-
nisms, as if a scientific design serves as the only necessary and sufficient condition for
the success of an innovation. While case studies about local innovations have mush-
roomed in the past decade, not many have examined the contextual drivers of local inno-
vations, that is, how local innovations occurred in the first place.5 This void in research
should be filled, because it increases our understanding of the developmental path of
social accountability innovations. The engagement between state and society is very
much like a relationship between two persons. A good start sets good parameters for
subsequent interaction, which may eventually lead to a sustained relationship. A bad one
may disrupt the entire interactive mechanism or even lead to a premature end of the rela-
tionship. This is even more so in less democratic settings where genuine public participa-
tion is not commonly found. Due to the path-dependent nature of social accountability,
researchers should trace the very process of emergence so as to fully understand the
dynamism and complexity of social accountability.
This article looks at the emergence of social accountability innovations in the context
of public supervision in contemporary China. Social accountability covers many differ-
ent categories of participatory behaviours such as citizen supervision and oversight, pub-
lic information access and dissemination systems, public complaints, as well as
deliberative activities on decision-making.6 Public supervision is thus a specific mecha-
nism of social accountability. The notion of public supervision refers to a set of proce-
dures, practices, and strategies that enable citizens to examine government performance
with accessed information; criticize and challenge cadres with deviant behaviours; and
make suggestions and seek remedies. The ultimate purpose is to demand from govern-
ment answerability and enforcement, as accountability theories suggest.7
Meixi 3
The research reported here draws on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Zhejiang
Province and Guangxi Province. Altogether 92 interviews were conducted with monitors
participating in public supervision programmes in different localities, government offi-
cials, local media workers, and other respondents. The research design was structured as
a subnational comparative analysis. The main case study is the Civil Monitory
Organization (市民监督团) in Wenzhou Prefecture. Shadow cases concerned public
supervision initiatives in other experimental sites, including Taizhou Prefecture and
Huzhou Prefecture in Zhejiang Province, and Guilin Prefecture and Hechi Prefecture in
Guangxi Province.
Based on comparative empirical evidence, this article identifies three factors respon-
sible for the successful emergence of innovations in public supervision: (1) social
momentum for accountability; (2) the presence of backers at the elite level; and (3) an
opening for mobilization. These three drivers are not sufficient to ensure the success of a
social accountability innovation in its actual operation, but without them social account-
ability innovations cannot operate as intended.
An overview of social initiatives: Pro-accountability
momentum as a driver of public supervision
Local innovations in China often originate from government initiatives. In Chinese
scholarly discourse and official rhetoric, the state is always seen as the decisive player
that initiates social accountability innovations. According to a recent survey of local
government officials, 91.8 per cent of respondents claimed that social accountability
innovations owed their origins to the state. For certain, a significant number of such
innovations are not socially driven. Some are not entirely social accountability innova-
tions but administrative reforms which require no more than an upgrading or streamlin-
ing of government administrative services. Other innovations are considered fake
innovations.8 Using the label of local democracy, they are merely products of arbitrary
decision-making when cadres make rash decisions.
The effective operation of social accountability innovations does require vigilant citi-
zens. Successful innovations do not arise solely out of the will of individual officials but
are the result of complex social processes.9 When we talk about authoritarian accounta-
bility and ask whether and how citizens can hold an authoritarian government account-
able, we are presuming that citizens – even in authoritarian contexts – are conscious of
their rights and that they aspire to exercise their political rights. Pro-accountability
momentum so defined requires a conception of citizens-as-principals, plus a certain
degree of social pressure for change in the status quo. It is often the combination of the
two which serves as the subjective linchpin of social accountability innovations.10
Firstly, social accountability innovations are often directly or indirectly triggered by
heightened social pressure protesting against governance failure. While it is usually the
government that takes the decisive role in initiating innovations, the roots of innovation
sometimes lie within society itself. Just like the emergence of social activism, social
accountability innovations are more likely to surface in a political environment plagued
by social grievances.11 In China, many successfully launched social accountability
4 China Information 00(0)
innovations and practices largely owe their rise to bottom-up dissatisfaction against
incompetent cadres. The renowned Wenling model of deliberative consultation in
Zhejiang Province first emerged in 1999 as a critical response to heightened cadre–mass
tension.12 Maliu Township in Chongqing implemented monitory co-governance using
the ‘eight-step working method’ as an ad hoc solution to alleviate conflicts between
local village cadres and aggrieved peasants.13 The Village Affairs Supervision
Committee in Houchen Village in Zhejiang came into being only after waves of villag-
ers’ petitions against officials’ misuse of power during land acquisition.14 In these cases,
severe power abuses by local cadres led to rallying cries for government accountability,
but changes did not take place until the tension between cadres and residents reached
breaking point. Under such heightened circumstances, social accountability innovations
were adopted both as a safety valve and an antidote to poor governance. Social account-
ability innovations may help local governments to improve institutional performance,
retain public trust, and maintain political stability.
Another vital element preconditioning the operation of social accountability is civic
vigilance, or a conception of citizens-as-principals. Social accountability is a two-player
game with citizens acting as principals on the demand side and government officials as
agents on the supply side.15 The operation of social accountability follows a reciprocal
circle: vigilant citizens press for government accountability, and governments in turn
justify their actions to the public or remedy contravening behaviours. For social account-
ability to function properly, people are expected to possess a certain degree of political
consciousness. They should know that they have the right to monitor government offi-
cials, ask for justification, and even impose sanctions when needed – they are indeed citi-
zens, not subjects. The conception of citizens-as-principals is often taken for granted as
naturally occurring, but this is not necessarily the case under authoritarianism. As some
scholars have noted, Chinese citizens exhibit a pro-authoritarian form of rules conscious-
ness.16 If people lack the initiative to prod the government into reporting about and
answering for its actions, there is little room for social accountability to take root.
Compared to the cases where social grievances erupted into violence, what happened
in Wenzhou can be likened to a chronic headache. Belonging to the category of the most
affluent cities in China, Wenzhou gained recognition for its model of grass-roots house-
hold enterprises, commonly called the Wenzhou model. However, its pace of socio-eco-
nomic development has been faltering since the beginning of the 21st century, leading to
a popular view that the city was becoming bankrupt.17 According to official statistics,
Wenzhou’s economy and annual GDP growth rate were in a steady decline from 2010 to
2012.18 Since 2010, its annual GDP per capita has ranked below the average in Zhejiang
Province, and some of its key indices have dropped to the bottom of the province’s
rankings.19
It was widely believed that failures in local governance were responsible for the situ-
ation in Wenzhou. Prior to the birth of the Civil Monitory Organization, public senti-
ment favoured change. Some informants in this study claimed that the Wenzhou local
government provided the worst services and produced the most corrupt officials.20
Street-level bureaucrats were said to be heavily involved in rent-seeking. They were
derogatively nicknamed ‘small devils’ for constantly harassing people if they were not
treated to feasts, drinks, and cigarettes. This form of abuse of power was known locally
Meixi 5
as chi na ka yao (吃拿卡要), meaning ‘creating obstacles and demanding bribes’.21
Moreover, local residents were extremely dissatisfied with the unresponsiveness and
passivity of local cadres, which they called cadre laziness. As a matter of fact, the
Wenzhou government became well known for its laissez-faire style of leadership.22 As
a female monitor complained, ‘Wenzhou cadres are totally incomparable to cadres in
Beijing. They are too lazy and too casual. In fact, they don’t even have the decent look
of communist cadres.’23
While it is tempting to see public grievances as a direct response to failures in gov-
ernance, in-depth interviews with monitors from the Civil Monitory Organization
revealed that a strong rights consciousness lay beneath the social dissatisfaction in
Wenzhou. Unlike those who conveyed problems to higher-level authorities to have their
personal grievances addressed, those who joined the Civil Monitory Organization were
motivated by a strong commitment to protect the public interest.24 When asked, ‘In your
opinion, what are the purposes for establishing the Civil Monitory Organization?’, a
number of monitors said that they saw it as a platform for exercising their citizens’
rights and for fulfilling their obligation as owners of the city. The terms for ‘rights’ (权)
and ‘citizen’ (公民) appeared 66 times and 41 times, respectively, in the interviews. One
retiree said, ‘We are not subjects or slaves. We are owners of this city. We must learn to
exercise our citizen rights, including the right to supervise and the right to criticize and
make suggestions.’25 A rights activist said, ‘It is an unalienable civil right to supervise
the government. Now that we are here, we represent the citizen power of supervision.’26
Another retiree commented that he was often ridiculed by onlookers as a busybody.
Even his wife was a bit unhappy about his decision to join the Civil Monitory
Organization: ‘She said that I was fooling around and I should mind my own business.
But I strongly disagree. We citizens must have a sense of ownership.’27
A few monitors used the exact Chinese translation for accountability to describe their
role. They claimed that monitors should ‘call cadres to account’ (责问). Citizens, in their
opinion, had the right and the responsibility to ‘make cadres answerable for their actions’
(问责), and ‘impose sanctions in cases of power abuse’ (追责). Most interviewees
expressed their desire to rectify cadres’ work style in general. They felt that cadres should
embrace a wide range of virtues when in office, including diligence and efficiency, and
that laziness was unacceptable. A local non-governmental organization (NGO) worker
made an interesting analogy: ‘Public supervision of government is similar to whipping a
spinning top. Once you stop, officials just go back to sipping tea and reading newspapers
again.’28 Work style can also refer to the appropriate use of power, as opposed to chi na
ka yao and cadre favouritism. A security guard said, ‘We monitor and sound the fire
alarm. This is what I call a mechanism of “correction”, which provides checks and bal-
ances. With our presence, the government would not use power arbitrarily.’29
There were great variations across different cases in terms of social momentum. For
example, there were no demands for accountability in T County in Hechi Prefecture,
Guangxi Province. The county’s Anti-corruption Bureau under the People’s Procurate
initiated a social accountability innovation encouraging 81 villages under its jurisdiction
to expose village cadre misconduct. However, the Bureau found it extremely difficult to
mobilize the villagers. According to the Bureau’s deputy leader, many local villagers did
not understand the meaning of corruption. For example, they interpreted village cadres’
6 China Information 00(0)
rent-seeking behaviour as part of their job soliciting service fees.30 Nor did the villagers
think that they had the right or the obligation to hold village cadres accountable. A lack
of rights consciousness led to the failure of this innovation in T County.
Except for the case in Hechi, vigilant citizens were found in the other case studies. In
second-tier Chinese cities where the urban middle class made up a significant percentage
of the local population, it was not surprising that local citizens expressed interest in
political participation. Though not every city experienced the dramatic rise and fall as
Wenzhou did, citizens certainly wanted their officials to be clean and responsive. In
Huzhou, several locals established a monitory organization bearing the same name as its
Wenzhou counterpart and had it registered as a legal NGO. The leaders of Huzhou’s
monitory organization were retired communist cadres who wanted to contribute to the
development of Huzhou City and to the well-being of its people. Unlike Wenzhou’s
monitors who dared to combat street-level corruption, public supervision by Huzhou’s
activists was much more moderate, probably due to the political background of its lead-
ers. Its slogan reads, ‘Supervision promotes development without adding trouble’.31 In
Guilin and Taizhou, state-led monitoring programmes for procuratorate corruption and
procurement fraud, respectively, have been rolled out. In their interviews, participants
from the two field sites expressed concerns about local power abuse, but in a less asser-
tive manner as compared to Wenzhou’s monitors. While accountability initiatives in
Guilin and Taizhou were not systematically different from those in Wenzhou, the initia-
tives had little impact because of deliberate attempts by local officials to prevent politi-
cally active citizens from participating.
The advent of powerful backers
Direct pressure from below is not strong enough to generate reform. To achieve public
supervision, local residents require powerful backing in the form of political support.
The role of influential allies is known to be crucial in political opportunity structures.32
Research shows that the presence of powerful allies can provide a window of opportunity
for politicizing pro-accountability demands. Government officials can use their influ-
ence and authority to provide patronage to relatively powerless social actors.33 In author-
itarian regimes and weak democracies where the actual exercise of citizens’ rights is
limited, the presence of high-level political allies is especially crucial.34
The importance of having powerful allies is even more salient in China’s Leninist
party-state regime where power is concentrated in the hands of party chiefs or officials
in command. Interestingly, the monitors we interviewed did not refer to these govern-
ment actors as allies or partners. Instead, they used the term ‘backer’ (靠山), which refers
to a powerful actor that one can rely upon. Since backers have considerable power, influ-
ence, or scarce resources at their disposal, those with a lower socio-economic status will
look to backers for benefits, assistance, and protection. A backer is not entirely the same
as an ally, though both concepts overlap. A backer is a specific type of ally that offers
support, just as all other influential allies do. Unlike the relationship between allies which
can be equal and cooperative, that between backers and activists is based on hierarchy.
When it comes to social accountability innovations, party chiefs hold an ideal position
to act as backers. Party chiefs play a decisive role in social accountability innovations
Meixi 7
because they occupy the pinnacle of the local power pyramid in a given political unit.
This enables them to make authoritative decisions and provide crucial political space for
participants.35 First, they can delegate the supervision of officials to locals and allow
them to demand that local cadres be answerable. Second, they can take certain measures
to reward or punish cadres.
The Civil Monitory Organization in Wenzhou would not have come into being were
it not for the advent of a new party secretary, Chen Derong, in the summer of 2010. Chen
was popularly known as a faultfinder, because his ambitions to wipe out corruption
threatened the vested interests of local power holders. According to Chen, public super-
vision is a pillar of state-building because it provides checks and balances.36 Local resi-
dents had great hopes for this new leader. Hailed a ‘genius’ and described as ‘upright
Chen’, the local media and several enthusiastic citizens proposed establishing a citizen
monitoring organization to improve local governance. Chen supported this idea and
commented that ‘public supervision is not to scratch itches, but to solve real problems’.37
In 2012, the Civil Monitory Organization came into being.
In interviews with monitors in Wenzhou, almost every one of them expressed their
gratitude to Chen for his support of the Civil Monitory Organization initiative. Despite
the fact that faltering economic development in Wenzhou was a compelling reason for
change, incompetent officials did not have the courage and the determination to empower
the grass roots to directly supervise, monitor, and oversee government operations,
because of the risk of disrupting the local political ecology and even offending higher-
level officials.
It was a completely different story for grass-roots cadres at the street level. As the
lowest-ranking administrative personnel with the most frequent interaction with citizens,
grass-roots cadres in Wenzhou were the most likely to become the target of public anger.
These cadres were reluctant to accept oversight from a third party, because it made their
work more difficult. They would receive punishment from their superiors, or even be
dismissed from office if a serious problem was publicized by the Civil Monitory
Organization. According to the monitors, grass-roots cadres were quite unhappy with the
municipal government’s decision to establish the Civil Monitory Organization.38 They
remained highly ambivalent about allowing citizens to supervise and assess their work
performance. An experienced monitor said, ‘It’s the grass-roots cadres who hate us the
most, because on most occasions they are the target of supervision. They would warmly
welcome us by serving tea and refreshments, but would curse us soon after we left.’39
The state apparatus is not monolithic or unitary but a complex power system com-
prised of multiple parts with different goals, interests, and functions. Among the higher-
level authorities stood a powerful backer, Chen Derong, whereas at the grass-roots level
there were street office cadres who displayed a knee-jerk animosity towards monitors.
Unlike circumstances where people ferret out allies when divisions arise among the
elites, the tension within the state was mainly between the upper-level principals and
their agents. This structural fissure has enabled the formation of a dual-principal sand-
wich structure involving three actors, where both upper-level state authorities and moni-
tors perceived themselves as the principals of local cadres.40 Since neither top-down
control nor bottom-up pressure alone was sufficiently strong to force local cadres to be
accountable, the two forces relied on each other to achieve a better result. Moreover,
8 China Information 00(0)
co-governance saved on administrative costs for top-down monitoring. While citizens
who enlisted in public supervision were not paid for their services, in actual fact they
were carrying out a function of government. In a monitor’s words, they were ‘running
errands’.41
Similar situations were found in the Public Bidding Monitoring Office (招投标监督
管理办公室) for public project bidding in Taizhou, where cadres were strongly in favour
of innovation to boost institutional performance and gain political credit. This was also
the case in T County at Hechi. The government of Huzhou City also praised the local
monitory organization, but the support it offered was less tangible than its Wenzhou
counterpart.
Guilin is one example of a less successful experiment with public supervision. To
broaden the scope of judicial reform, the pilot programme of the People’s Supervisor
System (人民监督员制度) was expanded to the local procuratorial organ of Guilin in
Guangxi Province.42 Because the programme was a top-down initiative promoted and
enforced by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate rather than an endogenous response to
local problems, the local government did not have much incentive and motivation to
work on it. The local bureau of justice, which was responsible for managing the innova-
tion, implemented it half-heartedly. Quoting the cadre in charge of the innovation:
We have strictly followed the procedures and requirements stipulated by the central government.
People’s Supervisors are a really good idea, but we don’t have the time and energy to facilitate
monitors’ demand. I am fully occupied with other important things, so I have to reduce my
attention on this innovation to a minimum.43
An authentic opening for mobilization
A third element crucial to the successful development of social accountability is an
authentic opening for mobilization. In this research, the level of opening was measured
by whether or not innovations openly recruited participants, and whether participants
were allowed to affect the work of recruitment and organization. What exactly is the role
of an opening in the emergence of social accountability? Operating a social accountabil-
ity innovation is similar to generating hydroelectricity. To do so, one needs a volume of
mass and a height difference which gives velocity to the moving water. To create flow,
one must open the water gate so that water can travel. Similarly, for a social accountabil-
ity innovation to take place, vigilant citizens are needed, along with state backing which
puts citizens in a higher position vis-a-vis local cadres in the accountability chain. But
without an opening, vigilant citizens cannot fulfil their supervisory function, and social
accountability innovations will not achieve their full potential.
A central feature of the Civil Monitory Organization in Wenzhou was that it made
participation open to the entire local population, regardless of age, gender, political affili-
ation, origin of birth, education, occupation and income, and so on. Citizens were wel-
come to join on condition that they could read and write, and they were free to leave at
any time. There were mixed rationales behind this strategy. Apparently, the local govern-
ment had big ambitions. Mobilizing the masses entailed putting pressure on lower-level
cadres. Second, Chinese cadres’ obsession with numbers made them inclined to cite big
Meixi 9
numbers to amplify their achievements, and political innovations were seen as a means
of obtaining political credit. In fact, the Wenzhou local government was quite proud of
the fact that the innovation attracted 6000 citizens (including all Civil Monitory
Organization subgroups under its jurisdiction). The local Publicity Department stressed
this number when it applied for The Best Practice of Chinese Government Innovations
Award (中国政府创新最佳实践), and when a group of specialists from the Central
Compilation and Translation Bureau paid Wenzhou a field visit.
Unlike a typical mass mobilization exercise where the state proactively extracts social
resources, the initial recruitment was on an entirely voluntary basis.44 In the preparatory
stage, media workers posted an advertisement to attract potential participants. Once a
civil society practitioner became a monitor, he or she would often introduce fellow mem-
bers to join the Civil Monitory Organization. ZH, for instance, was the leader of an
advocacy group which worked to protect the local river. After he became prominent in
the Civil Monitory Organization, he established his own subgroup and invited fellow
members and concerned neighbours living near the river to join him.
With an authentic opening, activists could mobilize collective action through social
appropriation, that is, they ‘appropriate[d] an existing [non-political] organization and
the routine collective identity on which it rests’.45 The presence of strong social net-
works enabled the Civil Monitory Organization to develop an organizational structure
typical of a civil society outfit rather than a state-controlled organization. Although the
Civil Monitory Organization was nominally under the charge of the Publicity
Department, the latter did not interfere with the former’s finances, leadership selec-
tion, or internal management, but tacitly supported the organization’s self-governance.
Thus, the Civil Monitory Organization was able to establish a flat management struc-
ture. Made up of 12 groups, each group in the Civil Monitory Organization had five to
seven members and a democratically elected leader who was responsible for daily
communications and coordination of tasks. The Civil Monitory Organization did not
have a special purpose fund and its finances did not come directly from the local gov-
ernment. Local media institutions, which worked closely with the organization, had
been allocating a part of their commercial revenue for the organization’s expenditures,
such as transportation and meals, but oftentimes monitors had to finance their own
operations.
Finally, the open recruitment system led to a diversified membership in the Civil
Monitory Organization. With the permission of an appropriate authority, the author was
able to obtain a registration information table via a mini archive.46 The empirical data
revealed that the organization’s members worked in different social sectors, ranging
from private enterprises and social organizations to villages, schools, and state-owned
work units (see Table 1).47 The majority came from grass-roots backgrounds. Some were
waged employees such as bank clerks, shop assistants, and security guards. Many ran
small businesses such as eateries and apparel shops. Most notably, a significant number
of the monitors worked outside the party-state system. In the Civil Monitory Organization,
the ratio of monitors from the state sector to monitors from the non-state sector was
approximately 9:20.
Some local social accountability innovations also provided a full opening for citizen
participation. Hechi’s initiative welcomed all villagers living under the jurisdiction of T
10 China Information 00(0)
County to alert the county’s Anti-corruption Bureau of wrongdoing and malfeasance.
According to the leader of Huzhou’s Civil Monitory Organization, membership was also
open to the entire local population.48 The Taizhou government did not follow an open
mobilization policy but only recruited a number of citizens with work experience related
to public procurement. According to the head of the Public Bidding Monitoring Office,
the reason was that supervising public procurement was a highly professional task and
only those with expertise in bidding and procurement could do a good job.49 The way
Guilin innovated the procedure of appointing People’s Supervisors contrasts sharply
with the procedure in Wenzhou. Without any enthusiasm to roll out the innovation, the
Guilin Municipal Bureau of Justice preferred a closed recruitment system to avoid any
trouble.50 The Bureau first sent an announcement to local work units and a few non-state
organizations, asking each of them to nominate a few candidates. It then undertook a
qualification review to ensure that those selected were deemed politically safe. As shown
in Table 2, the composition of Guilin’s People’s Supervisors differs substantially from its
Wenzhou counterpart.51 Monitors’ social backgrounds were much less diverse. There
were only four occupational categories, and more than half of the members were govern-
ment employees. Grass-roots members (seven peasants) made up a marginal group. The
closed recruitment policy excluded local social networks from participation. Because
monitors came from different work units, most of them did not know each other before
they joined. Without any pre-existing social networks, they found it difficult to get
acquainted with each other. A lawyer said, ‘We met once or twice each year to monitor
activities when called upon by the Bureau of Justice. That’s all I know about the People’s
Supervisors innovation. We don’t contact each other very often because we don’t know
each other well.’52
Table 1. The composition of Wenzhou’s Civil Monitory Organization.
Occupation of members No.
Clerks 135
Self-employed small businessmen 45
Professionals and intellectuals 35
Senior executives 31
Government employees 31
Paid social workers 18
SME entrepreneurs 9
Villagers 9
Retirees 9
Students 2
Unemployed 2
Total 326
State/non-state employees
State employees 97
Non-state employees 229
Source: Information provided by Wenzhou TV station (see note 46).
Meixi 11
The performance and impact of Wenzhou’s Civil Monitory
Organization
Wenzhou’s Civil Monitory Organization tackled problems with cadres’ work ethics. One such
problem was illegal, self-serving behaviour such as corruption. The other was job-related mal-
feasance, which refers to improper behaviour such as dereliction of duty.53 In Chinese, failure
to carry out one’s duty is known as nonfeasance (不作为) and malfeasance (乱作为).
Detecting both types of failure fell under the supervision of the Civil Monitory Organization,
which also targeted other unprofessional conduct such as poor service attitude.
Supervision carried out by Wenzhou’s Civil Monitory Organization was either dele-
gated by authorities higher up or it concerned areas that monitors chose to supervise.
Delegated supervision mainly involved ensuring the effective implementation of policy
mandates. Monitors were informed of the specifics of state priorities and would then
proceed to investigate and collect information about these policy areas. The local gov-
ernment characterized this as compulsory action.54 Monitors were also allowed to initiate
supervision in areas of their choice on their own, which the local government called
voluntary action.55 In this kind of supervision, monitors enjoyed a higher degree of
autonomy over their field of supervision, such as environmental protection, public trans-
portation, food safety, and housing relocation.
From 2010 to 2014, the Organization officially conducted more than 300 monitory
activities. This far exceeded social accountability innovations in other observed field
sites. By 2014, at least 500 problems were solved, and internal statistics cited a success
rate of 85 per cent.56 The following section presents two successful cases.
Case 1: Cadres’ rooftop gardens
In April 2012, an anonymous online post exposing the construction of illegal structures
by local cadres in Wenzhou’s Cangnan County went viral. It revealed that since 2007,
Table 2. The composition of Guilin’s People’s Supervisors programme.
Occupation of members No.
Government employees 34
Professionals and intellectuals 17
Peasants 7
SME entrepreneurs 4
Total 62
State/non-state employees No.
State employees 37
Non-state employees 35
Total 62
Source: 桂林市司法局任命62名市检察院人民监督员尚属首次 (For the first time Guilin Bureau of Justice
appointed 62 People’s Supervisors of the Municipal People’s Procuratorate), 3 November 2015, http://news.
guilinlife.com/n/2015-11/03/372114_2.shtml, accessed 5 May 2019.
12 China Information 00(0)
more than 80 illegal rooftop gardens had been built on the collectively owned terraces in
a residential community.57 Residents living on the top floor even locked up the terraces
to prevent their neighbours from entering. Complaints by other residents and local media
reports made no real impact, and it was rumoured that the majority of the owners of these
illegal rooftop gardens were high-ranking cadres. Disgruntled residents turned to the
Civil Monitory Organization for help. During their two days of investigation, monitors
confirmed that about half of the constructions were built by government officials. They
confronted Cangnan County’s deputy head and presented him with the evidence they had
collected. Embarrassed by the findings, the deputy head yielded to public demands and
promised to remove the rooftop gardens. The scandal came to the attention of Chen
Derong, who immediately sent the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection a
written instruction, in which he demanded a thorough investigation.58 The Commission
organized a trip to Cangnan County and set a deadline for the county government to
demolish the illegal rooftop gardens. In the meantime, constant media coverage exerted
pressure on the county government to take decisive action. Fifteen days later, monitors
followed up with a second inspection and found that most of the illegal rooftop gardens
had been demolished. Those who failed to do so were suspended from duty.59
Case 2: Gaming in the office
In 2016, monitor MF organized an open inspection to a local bureau during a workday.
Upon her arrival, she found that a division head was playing computer games. She
recorded the incident on her mobile phone and reported the case to that bureau’s disci-
pline inspection commission. The head of the commission was reluctant to punish that
division head, who was said to have political backing. MF immediately revealed her
identity and showed him the video evidence. After a moment of silence, he pleaded,
‘Please do not tell this matter to the municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection or
post the video on the Internet. I promise I will mete out punishment to that man.’60 Under
MF’s pressure, the case resulted in the division head taking a deduction equivalent to six
months’ salary. The same penalty was also imposed on his immediate superior.
Such supervision activities have exerted tremendous pressure on local cadres. In the
past, local cadres saw little reason to explain their behaviour to citizens, for the latter
were nobodies, or ‘shitizens’ (屁民). With higher authorities empowering local residents,
local cadres felt pressured to be accountable to monitors. Monitors were addressed as
teachers, a title granted to respected persons, particularly those with much knowledge
and wisdom. Cadres would also welcome monitors with tea, refreshments, and wide
smiles when they came to visit. Monitor JJ noted, ‘Cadres talked to us with their legs
shivering. At such moments, I truly felt that I was an inspector sent by the emperor.’61
Some cadres would curse monitors when they left but this did not worry monitors at all.
Monitor AY said, ‘I know that government officials are cursing me. But isn’t it because
they are afraid of me? If they’re not, why do this behind my back?’62 At the height of the
Civil Monitory Organization’s efficacy from 2011 to 2012, cadres cried and pleaded with
monitors on multiple occasions for a second chance after they were found to be derelict
in their duties. Some who received the news beforehand even fled from their offices.
Monitors’ investigations mean the severe disciplining hand of the state. A Chinese idiom
Meixi 13
狐假虎威 uses the analogy of a fox borrowing the authority of the tiger to describe pow-
erless actors relying on a powerful backer to threaten others. Cadres are afraid of moni-
tors precisely because of the authority of higher-level government officials who offer
overt support. In short, because local agents are appointed and assessed by higher-rank-
ing authorities, they dare not reject supervision by state-backed monitors. Monitors’ per-
sistent efforts have hence kept street-level cadres under constant pressure.
Conclusion
‘Accountability regimes develop within particular political and social contexts in
response to particular conflicts in authority relations. Conventional wisdom suggests that
authoritarianism is unaccountable to citizens by definition.’63 Even so, social accounta-
bility under authoritarian rule is not a fantasy. Over the past few decades, the question of
whether the CCP’s autocratic rule is compatible with accountability has invited heated
scholarly debate. Some believe that the CCP appears to be increasingly adept at manag-
ing daunting social challenges.64 Others question the CCP’s capacity to rule, claiming
that it cannot truly facilitate civil aspirations for political participation.65
This article looked at social accountability innovations in contemporary China and
examined the compatibility of authoritarianism with accountable governance. It argued
that accountability can happen even in a politically constrained context if both state and
society demonstrate a strong commitment to good governance. Higher-level government
authorities may seek to overcome formidable challenges in a multi-layered bureaucracy
to ensure that local agents are acting properly. Citizens at the grass-roots level who are
given the nominal status of principals may aspire to monitor and sanction their agents.
This dual-principal structure forged a coalition, or what Theda Skocpol calls the fit
between collective social actors with specific goals and the points of access and leverage
afforded by the state.66 Social accountability is not solely driven by either the state or
society but is a reciprocal process of interaction involving initiatives by both parties.
Only when openings from above are congruent with sentiments from below can both
work together to politicize pro-accountability initiatives.
Using Wenzhou’s Civil Monitory Organization as the main case study, this article has
identified three contextual drivers that led to the successful emergence of public supervi-
sion innovations in China: (1) social momentum for accountability; (2) the presence of a
powerful backer at the elite level; and (3) an authentic opening for mobilization.
Comparative data that was gathered further demonstrated the validity of the three listed
factors. Empirical analysis showed that public supervision innovations in different local-
ities were supported by different contextual drivers. When any of the three factors was
absent, active citizen participation was less likely. As Table 3 shows, the level of active
participation is strongly associated with the three listed factors. Without support from the
ground for accountable governance, the anti-corruption monitor programme in Hechi
ended prematurely, even though the local government demonstrated a strong commit-
ment to combat corruption among the ranks of village cadres and encouraged participa-
tion by villagers. In Guilin, the local government strictly controlled the recruitment of
potential supervisors and excluded most local citizens. Huzhou and Taizhou stood some-
where in between. Social momentum and state support were both present, and the
14 China Information 00(0)
recruitment policy was not as restrictive as Guilin’s. Supervisory activities thus took
shape under those circumstances, though they were not as extensive as Wenzhou’s. These
empirical findings strongly suggest that the three factors are all necessary conditions for
the successful implementation of public supervision innovations.
These research findings have important practical implications for China’s political devel-
opment. They provide pragmatic suggestions to policymakers and other stakeholders who
have an interest in sponsoring or initiating this particular form of social accountability. The
significance of this study for public policy is especially obvious when set against the back-
ground of current political trends in China under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, who
has encouraged the Chinese people to ‘weave a web of mass supervision’ and to ‘train an
all-weather spotlight’ on irresponsible cadres.67 Arguably, if the CCP takes Xi’s proposal seri-
ously and stays committed, it is highly likely that public supervision will thrive in the near
future. Xi’s leadership provides an environment conducive for proponents of social account-
ability innovations. After all, the head of the CCP should be the most powerful backer of the
masses. Local policy entrepreneurs may be encouraged to expand civil monitoring opportu-
nities. In such an environment, civil society practitioners may create opportunities to collabo-
rate with local governments that lack resources to achieve effective oversight.
Notes
1. Helene Grandvoinnet, Ghazia Aslam, and Shomikho Raha, Opening the Black Box: The
Contextual Drivers of Social Accountability, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015, 1.
2. For public supervision, see Baogang He and Mark E. Warren, Authoritarian deliberation:
The deliberative turn in Chinese political development, Perspectives on Politics 9(2), 2011:
269–89; Meixi Zhuang, Xiaoling Zhang, and Stephen L. Morgan, Citizen–media interac-
tion in China’s local participatory reform: A contingent participation model, Journal of
Contemporary China 27(109), 2017: 120–36. For a social assessment, see Oscar Almén,
Participatory innovations under authoritarianism: Accountability and responsiveness in
Hangzhou’s social assessment of government performance, Journal of Contemporary China
27(110), 2017: 165–79.
3. See He and Warren, Authoritarian deliberation.
4. See Bao Yang, Yufei He, and Wenjin Long, Alienation of civic engagement in China?: Case
studies on social governance in Hangzhou, Voluntas 27(5), 2016: 2150–72.
5. For studies on local social accountability innovations in China, see He and Warren,
Authoritarian deliberation; Lang Youxing, Crafting village democracy in China: The
Table 3. Comparison of contextual factors and level of participation between public
supervision innovations in different fieldwork sites.
Fieldwork
sites
Pro-accountability
social momentum
Government
support
Level of
opening
Level of active
participation
Wenzhou Strong Strong High High
Taizhou Moderate Strong Moderate Moderate
Huzhou Moderate Moderate High Moderate
Guilin Moderate Low Low Low
Hechi Low Strong High n/a
Meixi 15
roles, networking, and strategies of provincial elites, Journal of Chinese Political Science
11(2), 2006: 61–82; and Jianxing Yu and Zhiyuan Qu, PPPs: Inter-actor relationships: Two
cases of home-based care services in China, Public Administration Quarterly 36(2), 2012:
238–64.
6. Jonathan A. Fox, Social accountability: What does the evidence really say?, World
Development 72, 2015: 346–61.
7. Andreas Schedler, Conceptualizing accountability, in Andreas Schedler, Larry Diamond,
and Marc F. Plattner (eds) The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New
Democracies, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999, 13–28.
8. Jia Jianyou 贾建友, 歧化与变通 – 基层视角的县市政府创新 (Alienation and transforma-
tion: City- and county-level government innovation viewed from a grass-roots perspective),
11 January 2008, http://www.zgxcfx.com/Article/5040.html, accessed 11 July 2017.
9. World Bank, State-Society Synergy for Accountability: Lessons for the World Bank, World
Bank Working Paper no. 30, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004, 25.
10. Doug McAdam, Cognitive liberation, in David A. Snow et al. (eds) The Wiley-Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, 2013, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
doi/10.1002/9780470674871.wbespm030/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAcces
sCustomisedMessage=, accessed 11 July 2017.
11. See Jonathan Fox, The Politics of Food in Mexico: State Power and Social Mobilization,
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992; Anna Marie Goetz and Rob Jenkins, Hybrid
forms of accountability: Citizen engagement in institutions of public-sector oversight in
India, Public Management Review 3(3), 2001: 363–83.
12. For the origins of Wenling’s deliberative consultation innovation, see Zhou Chunming 周
春明, 温岭‘民主恳谈会’的启示 (Revelation of the ‘democratic consultation meeting’ in
Wenling), 前线 (Frontline), no. 12, 2003: 35–6.
13. Joseph Fewsmith, The Logic and Limits of Political Participation in China, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2013.
14. Jin Xubin 金许斌, 村务监督机构发源地: 武义后陈村10多年‘零上访’ (The origins of
the supervisory organ for village affairs: ‘Zero petition’ for more than 10 years in Houchen
Village of Wuyi County), 浙江在线 (Zhejiang online), 13 July 2016, http://js.zjol.com.cn/
ycxw_zxtf/201607/t20160713_1727625.shtml, accessed 11 July 2017.
15. Charles C. Griffin et al., Lives in the Balance: Improving Accountability for Public Spending
in Developing Countries, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010.
16. Elizabeth J. Perry, Chinese conceptions of ‘rights’: From Mencius to Mao – and now,
Perspectives on Politics 6(1), 2008: 45–7.
17. There are a number of scholarly articles discussing Wenzhou’s economic decline. For a quick
overview, see Xiang Jiquan 项继权 and Li Zengyuan 李增元, 经社分开,城乡一体与社区
融合 – 温州的社区重建与社会管理创新 (Separation of economy and society, urban–rural
integration, and community integration: Community rebuilding and social management inno-
vation in Wenzhou), 华中师范大学学报 (人文社会科学版) (Journal of Huazhong Normal
University (humanities and social sciences edition)) 51(6), 2012: 1–9.
18. 2015年温州市国民经济和社会发展统计公报 (2015 statistical bulletin on national eco-
nomic and social development of Wenzhou city), 28 March 2016, http://wztjj.wenzhou.gov.
cn/art/2016/3/28/art_1243860_5868334.html, accessed 5 May 2017.
19. Details can be found in Bureau of Statistics of Zhejiang, 2010–2014年浙江统计年鉴
(Zhejiang statistical yearbook 2010–2014), http://tjj.zj.gov.cn/col/col1525563/index.html,
accessed 5 May 2019.
20. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (private enterprise employee, 20-29 years old, female),
27 September 2014.
16 China Information 00(0)
21. Chi means feasting, na means receiving dirty money, qia means deliberately placing obstacles
and making difficulties in the provision of public service, and yao means asking for bribes.
22. See Jianjun Zhang, Marketisation and Democracy in China, London and New York:
Routledge, 2008.
23. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (community cadre, 40–49 years old, female), 9 April
2015.
24. A number of empirical studies have found that some of the people who complain are not
aware of their rights. See, for example, Tamara Jacka and Wu Chengrui, Village self-gov-
ernment and representation in southwest China, Journal of Contemporary Asia 46 (1), 2016:
71–94.
25. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (retiree, above 60 years old, male), 25 September 2014.
26. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (entrepreneur running a leather factory, 30–39 years
old, male), 2 January 2015.
27. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (retiree, above 60 years old, male), 30 December 2014.
28. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (staff in an NGO, 30–39 years old, male), 29 November
2014.
29. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (peasant, security guard at a local hospital, 40–49 years
old, male), 23 May 2014.
30. Interview with an official in Hechi (deputy head of the Anti-corruption Bureau in T County,
40–50 years old, female), 10 February 2017.
31. Interview with a monitor leader in Huzhou (retired communist cadre, 60–70 years old, male),
10 January 2017.
32. Sidney Tarrow, States and opportunities: The political structuring of social movements, in
Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Meyer N. Zald (eds) Comparative Perspectives on
Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 41–61.
33. Grandvoinnet, Aslam, and Raha, Opening the Black Box, Chapter 5.
34. A number of empirical studies have talked about the strategic role of powerful allies in mak-
ing social accountability work. See Sam Hickey and Sophie King, Understanding social
accountability: Politics, power and building new social contracts, The Journal of Development
Studies 52(8), 2016: 1227; Vasudha Chhotray, Political entrepreneurs or development agents:
An NGO’s tale of resistance and acquiescence in Madhya Pradesh, India, in Anthony J.
Bebbington, Sophie Hickey, and Diana C. Mitlin (eds) Can NGOs Make a Difference?: The
Challenge of Development Alternatives, London: Zed Books, 2008, 261–78; and Fox, The
Politics of Food in Mexico.
35. Andreas Fulda, Yanyan Li, and Qinghua Song, New strategies of civil society in China: A
case study of the network governance approach, Journal of Contemporary China 21(76),
2012: 675–93.
36. See 陈德荣同志在市纪委十一届三次全会上的讲话 (Speech of comrade Chen Derong
delivered at the city’s Third Plenary Session of the 11th CCP Commission for Discipline
Inspection), 31 January 2013, http://www.wzctjt.com/station/SpecialPage/DJZCDetail/index.
htm?DirectoryID=121206105257&id=24815, accessed 11 July 2017.
37. Li Wenhui 李文辉, 浅谈‘市民监督团’在舆论监督节目中的运用 (A brief discussion on
leveraging the ‘civil monitory organization’ in the news programmes playing the role of
supervision by public opinion), 新闻世界 (News world), no. 6, 2013: 96–7.
38. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (entrepreneur running a leather factory, 30–39 years
old, male), 2 January 2015.
39. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (retiree, above 60 years old, male), 30 December
2014.
Meixi 17
40. For political opportunity and division within elites, see Tarrow, State and opportunities;
Sidney Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965–1975, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1989, Chapter 2.
41. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (small businessman running a ceramic shop, 30–39
years old, male), 30 October 2014.
42. 最高人民检察院关于实行人民监督员制度的规定 (Regulations of the Supreme People’s
Procuratorate on implementing the People’s Supervisor System), 6 February 2018, http://
www.spp.gov.cn/spp/jcbk/201802/t20180206_364951.shtml, accessed June 2 2019.
43. Interview with a communist cadre in Guilin Municipal Bureau of Justice (50–60 years old,
male), 6 February 2017.
44. In contemporary China, mass mobilization is still a prominent feature of party-state gov-
ernance. For example, when Bo Xilai, a highly prominent leftist before falling from grace,
launched his Singing Red campaign in Chongqing, he used his power and authority to
mobilize workers in work units and mass organizations to participate in the propaganda
movement.
45. Doug McAdam, Beyond structural analysis: Toward a more dynamic understanding of
social movements, in Mario Diani and Doug McAdam (eds) Social Movement Analysis:
The Network Perspective, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, 281–98; McAdam,
Cognitive liberation.
46. Wenzhou TV station provided the author with information on the registration details of the
members. The data in digital form are securely stored by the author in a password-protected
document which will be destroyed once the research project is completed.
47. According to the table, the number of registered members is 329. But the valid number for
data analysis is 326, because three monitors did not provide any further information except
for name and age. Also, this dataset contains information on the membership of the largest
subgroup in Wenzhou’s Civil Monitory Organization. Apart from this subgroup, Wenzhou
Prefecture has several other Civil Monitory Organization subgroups in the counties and dis-
tricts under its jurisdiction.
48. Interview with a monitor leader in Huzhou (retired communist cadre, 60–70 years old,
female), 10 January 2017.
49. Interview with the head of Taizhou’s Public Bidding Monitoring Office (50–60 years old,
male), 16 January 2017.
50. According to an official online announcement, citizens may nominate themselves, but an
interview with a cadre in the Bureau of Justice revealed that this was not the case. For the
online announcement, see 桂林市司法局关于选任桂林市人民检察院人民监督员的公告
(Announcement of Guilin Bureau of Justice on selecting and appointing People’s Supervisors
of the Municipal People’s Procuratorate), 5 September 2017, http://www.9ask.cn/guilin/
lvxie/85521.html, accessed 5 May 2019.
51. For a detailed name list, see桂林市司法局任命62名市检察院人民监督员尚属首
次 (For the first time Guilin Bureau of Justice appointed 62 People’s Supervisors of the
Municipal People’s Procuratorate), 3 November 2015, http://news.guilinlife.com/n/2015-
11/03/372114_2.shtml, accessed 5 May 2019.
52. Interview with a monitor in Guilin (lawyer, 40–50 years old, male), 6 February 2017.
53. Cai Yongshun, State and Agents in China: Disciplining Government Officials, Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2014, 11.
54. 温州: 市民监督团成为城市守护者 (Wenzhou: Civil monitory organization becomes the
city guard), 17 January 2014, http://zj.people.com.cn/n/2014/0117/c186327-20411209.html,
accessed 1 June 2016.
55. Ibid.
18 China Information 00(0)
56. Interview with the head of Wenzhou’s Publicity Department (30–39 years old, male), 30
December 2014.
57. For details of the incident, see a news report, 温州苍南党员干部违建续: 11位公职干部被
停职 (Follow-up on illegal building cases involved party members and officials in Cangnan
county of Wenzhou: 11 officials suspended from duty), 14 May 2012, http://news.ifeng.com/
mainland/detail_2012_05/14/14516446_0.shtml, accessed 26 September 2017.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (community cadre, 50–59 years old, female), 25 January
2017.
61. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (small businessman running a ceramic shop, 30–39
years old, male), 30 October 2014.
62. Interview with a monitor in Wenzhou (small businessman running an apparel shop, 30–39
years old, male), 20 May 2014.
63. Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
2000, 160.
64. Scholars have used different concepts to describe the adaptive nature of the party-state.
See Steve Tsang, Consultative Leninism: China’s new political framework, Journal of
Contemporary China 18(62), 2009: 865–80; Rory Truex, Consultative authoritarianism and
its limits, Comparative Political Studies 50(3), 2014: 329–61; He and Warren, Authoritarian
deliberation; Hongyi Lai, China’s Governance Model: Flexibility and Durability of Pragmatic
Authoritarianism, Abingdon, UK and New York: Routledge, 2016; and Christopher Heurlin,
Responsive Authoritarianism in China: Land, Protests, and Policy Making, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2016.
65. See, for example, Minxin Pei, China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental
Autocracy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006, 206.
66. Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in
the United States, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1992, 41.
67. CPC’s ‘mass line’ campaign not a short-term movement, 15 July 2013, http://english.cpc.
people.com.cn/206972/206976/8325279.html, accessed 16 January 2018; 习近平在党的
群众路线教育实践活动总结大会上的讲话 (Speech delivered by Xi Jinping at the con-
cluding meeting of the campaign on mass-line education and practice), 9 October 2014,
http://qzlx.people.com.cn/n/2014/1009/c364565-25792940.html, accessed 11 December
2016.
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