China: Government Officials' Property Declarations Published

On February 17, 2009 the Chinese government announced that senior public officials in the Altai district, Xinjiang province, are the first in China to publish their property declarations on the Internet. This is the start of a pilot on officials' disclosure reform, which has been on the agenda for some time.

The 4 trillion RMB ($586 billion) stimulus package in China gives national and regional government officials greater powers to select projects for investment, thus increasing the risks of misuse of authority for personal benefit. "[In this context] the issue of publicity of officials' personal property raises a heated discussion in the whole society," reports China News, a major online agency.

The Chinese government is testing the disclosure reform in Xinjiang province before extending it to the whole country. The declarations published in the Altai district contain information on all types of material benefits received by officials, including salary, consultancy and author fees, gifts and sponsored holidays or celebrations. More than 1000 declarations by senior government officials at the district level are being made public. Information on assets, including real estate, vehicles, bank deposits, stocks and bonds, and liabilities, is also declared but kept confidential.

Li Chengrui, former Director of the National Statistics Bureau and one of the proponents of the reform, says that it "does not need preparation and re-preparation." The financial crisis, it seems, has become an opportunity for promoting greater disclosure by politicians.