The government should take the lead in rebuilding a social
credit system, said a signed article in Beijing Youth
Daily. An excerpt follows:
The market economy is credit-based economy. Individual credit,
enterprise credit and government credit all go to form social
credit. As the nation has witnessed unprecedented economic growth
in recent years, it has also seen many social problems related to
social credit. A lack of credit has directly led to an increase in
transaction costs and then impeded economic development. The
government has paid great attention to it and the 16th National
Congress of Communist Party of China in 2002 also set the task to
"rectifying and standardizing the order of the market economy and
establishing a social credit-rating system."
But rather than building their own credit-rating system, some
administrative departments point their fingers at related
enterprises and individual citizens. Such credit building has
turned out to be an unilateral compulsory credit. For example, the
much-disputed practice of "putting overdue phone bills records into
citizens' credit files" was made by the central bank and the
Ministry of Information Industry. The essence of this system is to
require individual citizens to unilaterally meet the requirements
set by monopoly enterprises. In such circumstances, citizens have
become subject to the administrative departments' discretion. This
is undoubtedly unfair.
The building of social credit rating system can not only target
individual citizens, as the three parties of government,
enterprises and individuals are inter-related. We should realize
that the government should take the lead in building sound credit
because its credit is in the core position. A lack of credit on the
part of the government will have a negative impact on society.
It is quite often that administrative departments lose their
credits. For example the intermediate people's court of Yinchuan,
Ningxia, sent out ultimatums to 48 defendants who failed to perform
their legal obligations lately. Some government departments were on
the list. It is a pity that the central bank has not built a credit
rating system to make a record of these administrative
departments.
We should base the credit-rating system on laws rather than on
administrative orders. The building of a credit system and a
related legal system will promote the development of each other.
The Regulation on Government Information Publicity can be an
opportunity to build government credit. It provides necessary
conditions and opportunities for citizens to supervise the
government.
(China Daily April 30, 2007)