Market Lessons for China's Bureaucrats
In 1996, Liao Yi arrived in Wenzhou, China's haven of free enterprise in eastern Zhejiang province. The hustle and bustle was a far cry from his home in landlocked southwestern Guizhou province. But among the job-seeking throngs, Mr. Liao was a different sort of migrant: He was, and technically still is, a government official.
Mr. Liao had signed on for a sort of training program for civil servants under age 35, established in 1995 in his home county of Luodian. Mr. Liao and thousands of other local bureaucrats were sent to prosperous coastal cities such as Wenzhou to find private-sector jobs for as many as two years, all the while retaining their official ranks and salaries at home. It was meant to be a crash course in market economics for parochial apparatchiks; the trainees were assigned to bring back new skills, wealthy investors and important contacts.
"The point of the exercise," Mr. Liao explains, "was to rid us of the notion that being an official was the ultimate achievement."
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The domestic media got wind of the "migrant officials," and before long other inland provinces, including Hubei, Shanxi and Anhui, followed Luodian's example and established similar programs. It was all just another quirky byproduct of the tangled relationship between business and government in China, the flip side of the growing number of businessmen entering politics. While entrepreneurs compete to be officials, officials are also, despite Beijing's repeated injunctions, flocking into business.
According to advocates of the program, cadres who return from the big cities are more efficient and knowledgeable. But there are problems. Critics say the program is illegal. Since the 1980s, Beijing repeatedly has issued prohibitions against government officials holding positions in companies. However, though the program has been controversial from the start, it now seems to have won Beijing's tacit approval, in the absence of a more effective civil-service system that would more explicitly address a lack of training and motivation.
Mr. Liao, now 38 years old, is typical of insular officials introduced to an exciting new world upon leaving their homes. Until he started high school, he had never been out of the mountains of Luodian county, the impoverished home to 300,000 people. After graduating from college and working as a teacher, Mr. Liao worked as an official in the county propaganda department and later in the county's television station.
The pace of life and work in Luodian's bureaucracy was glacial. Mr. Liao found his workload at the overstaffed station to be unbearably light. Many of his colleagues whiled away their days playing mahjong. They expressed amazement at Mr. Liao's desire to leave, given that a government job in the county town is an unattainable dream for most locals.
In Wenzhou, Mr. Liao found a job at the Chint group, one of China's top manufacturers of circuit breakers and other industrial equipment. There, he edited the company's newsletter, became the company's press spokesman and was informally apprenticed to Nan Cunhui, Chint's founder. Mr. Nan is a fabled figure in Wenzhou, having gone from shoe repairman to a place among Forbes magazine's 2000 ranking of China's richest people. Chint sells $1.3 billion (�1.06 billion) of equipment a year and is seeking a listing on the Hong Kong stock market.
After two prosperous years in Wenzhou, Mr. Liao grew distant from his highly sought-after government job back home. He brought his wife and son to settle in Wenzhou. Mr. Liao says he intends to continue working in Wenzhou but eventually retire to Guizhou. In a book about his odyssey, entitled "From Guizhou to Wenzhou," he says he remains emotionally linked to his hometown and is confident about its future.
"Wenzhou did not start out rich, and Guizhou is not destined to be poor forever," he writes.
中国公务员民企受训
在1996年11月份的一个雨天，廖毅乘火车到达了温州──这个位于中国东部浙江省的自由企业的避风港。这里熙熙攘攘的景象和他在西南内陆地区贵州省的家乡有著天壤之别。但是，在求职大军当中，廖毅的身份有点特殊：他曾经是，而且从法律上来说现在仍然是，一名政府官员。
廖毅参加了一项针对35岁以下公务员的培训计划，该计划是他的家乡罗甸1995年设立的。他和其他几千名公务员被派到像温州这样繁荣的沿海城市，到当地的民营企业中谋职，期限最多为两年，同时他们的公职和薪金依然予以保留。这像是给那些墨守成规、眼界狭小的地方政府官员开设的市场经济速成培训班；受训者带回了新的技能，引来了有实力的投资者和重要的合约。廖毅解释说，“这次实践的意义在于改变了我们认为当官是终极成就的观念。”
在国内媒体曝出这一消息后不久，其他内陆省份，包括湖北、山西和安徽等纷纷仿效罗甸的做法，建立了类似的培训计划。显然，这一切获得了中央政府的默许。这不过是中国企业和政府之间盘根错节关系的另一个古怪产物，而另一方面，也有越来越多的企业家从政。在企业家竞争政府部门岗位的同时，公务员们也在大量涌向企业，尽管这是中央政府屡屡明令禁止的。
干部培训计划的拥护者认为，从大城市回来的公务员提高了工作效率，而且也增长了见识。但是，问题仍有很多。批评人士说，该计划显然是非法的。因为，自从上世纪80年代以来，中国政府多次发布通知，禁止政府官员在公司任职。然而，虽然该计划从一开始就备受争议，但现在似乎已经获得了政府的默许。批评人士补充说，这类计划是毫无意义的，应当建立一个更有效的政府服务体系，更明确地解决政府机构培训和激励机制匮乏的问题。
现年38岁的廖毅是那些离开家乡见识外面精彩世界的官员的一个典型。在上高中以前，他从未走出过罗甸的大山。大学毕业之后，他当过教师，然后在县城的宣传部门任职，此后又到了县电视台。
罗甸的生活和工作节奏是十分缓慢的。廖毅发现，在人浮于事的电视台里，他的工作清闲得难以忍受。他的许多同事每天都靠打麻将来消磨时间。他们对廖毅愿意离开这二去温州求职都颇为惊讶，因为对大多数当地人来说，在政府工作是他们遥不可及的梦想。
在温州，廖毅在正泰集团(Chint Group)找到了一份工作。该公司是中国领先的断路开关和其他工业设备的生产商之一。在那里，他负责编辑公司的新闻简报，担任公司的媒体发言人，并成为正泰集团创始人南存辉的非正式弟子。南存辉在温州可谓是传奇人物，这位昔日的修鞋匠已跻身福布斯杂志2000年中国富豪榜之列。正泰集团每年的设备销售额为13亿美元，目前正打算在香港市场上市。
在温州闯荡了两年之后，廖毅越来越远离了他曾经令人艳羡的政府岗位。他把他的妻子和儿子接到了温州，在那里定居下来。廖毅说，他打算继续在温州工作，但是最终还会回到贵州。他在以亲身经历为蓝本所著的名为《从贵州到温州》的书中说，他心里仍牵挂著他的家乡，而且对它的未来充满信心。他写道，温州不是一开始就这么富裕的，而贵州也不会永远贫穷下去。
