Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Computerized guanxi

The Communist Party in China might have found a shortcut to the personalized guanxi networks.

CPC introduces new management methods

A big data system to manage Communist Party of China (CPC) cadres has been introduced in the the city of Huai'an in eastern China's Jiangsu Province.

Information on each of the city's 12,000 cadres has been compiled under 356 data fields.

The system will keep confidential data used for cadre selection, covering detailed personal information and work performance history. It was developed by the Huai'an municipal CPC organization department.

"If there is a vacancy, the system is fast to screen all candidates with qualifications matching the position. In the past, people depended on their connections [guanxi] to recommend someone they know," said Zhang Xu, an official with the department.

The database pools information that used to be kept separately by 20 departments…

CPC organizations from both within and without Jiangsu have come to Huai'an to learn from its experiment.

Big data is the latest method used by the CPC to motivate and select outstanding CPC cadres, while punishing those implicated in corruption…