Why putting Chinese officials on speed dial won’t solve grassroots grievances

(Edited and refined by Bai Kelei, with the assistance of AI translation.)

Last month, two small Chinese cities published the personal mobile numbers of hundreds of officials, including top party and government leaders. A Chinese Communist Party (CCP) journal said such large-scale disclosure was rare in China. While describing the move as a “beneficial measure”, the journal warned that simply making the numbers public could turn it into “a new form of formalism”.

Quick access to the top

Citing the need to “further strengthen ties with the public”, the Changning City Inter-agency Petition Coordinating Office (信访工作联席会议办公室) in Hunan province issued a notice on 25 September with the mobile numbers of 132 senior city, municipal department, township and subdistrict government officials, including the personal numbers of the Changning party secretary and mayor.

Changning is a county-level city administered by Hengyang in Hunan and has a resident population of about 750,000. The notice reminded residents that local party and government leaders might not be able to answer calls while attending meetings or carrying out official duties, and suggested sending text messages instead.

On China’s far north-western border, Habahe county in Altay prefecture of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region also released the mobile numbers of 202 leading officials on 12 September. These included 28 leaders from the county’s four core leadership bodies, 84 heads of county-level departments and units, and 90 township officials.

On 17 September, Xinjiang Releases (新疆发布), the official social media account of the Xinjiang government information office, quoted Habahe’s publicity chief Wang Yuli as saying that the move was intended to enable residents to quickly reach the relevant departments and leaders to efficiently resolve their pressing concerns. Habahe party secretary Ding Zhichun had received nine calls and six text messages concerning issues such as wage payments for workers and land-use compensation for farmers and herders. Ding then gave instructions for the relevant units to follow up on the cases.

History of PR stunts?

On 20 September, CCP grassroots journal Ban Yue Tan (《半月谈》) said in a commentary that while it was not new for grassroots officials to disclose their mobile numbers, mass disclosure of this scale were uncommon. Since Qingshen county in Sichuan province made the phone numbers of party and government officials public in 1998, various Chinese localities have intermittently experimented with similar measures over the years.

The article said the initiative had created a direct channel for residents to raise their concerns with officials, calling it “a down-to-earth innovation in grassroots governance”. But it also urged caution, noting that in some places, the practice had amounted to nothing beyond sharing the numbers. “Once the online attention fades, calls cannot get through or go unanswered, and problems raised by the public disappear without a trace. Not only does this fail to resolve problems, it also damages the government’s credibility.”

The authors warned that without such follow-up mechanisms, the good initiative may end up as merely another variant of “formalism”.

Risk of performative politics

In June, Du Yanan, the former Bozhou party secretary in Anhui province who prominently took the lead in disclosing his personal mobile number in 2022, was brought down while serving as a member and secretary-general of the Anhui People’s Congress Standing Committee Party Leadership Group. Du, who used to enjoy online fame and was deemed approachable, saw his carefully cultivated image collapse and was consequently called a political showman.

Also in June, The Paper called the publicly available numbers of ten local officials in five provinces. None of the calls to the top party and government leaders of districts and counties got through. Only the party secretary of a township, the most basic level of administration, could be reached and was using this channel to handle residents’ requests.

A Chinese academic who wished to remain anonymous told Lianhe Zaobao that if the top leaders disclosed their mobile numbers, the public would obviously choose to call them first. While this might appear well-intentioned, democratic and people-friendly, it would also effectively sideline the departments responsible for such matters. If leaders’ contact numbers replace government service hotlines, then the question is whether the leaders still have the capacity to do their work.

Echoing the Ban Yue Tan article, the academic said disclosing officials’ personal mobile numbers was essentially a new form of formalism and added, “This practice goes against the rules of administration and the laws of economic and social development. Overall, it is a well-meaning aspiration that will most likely fizzle out.”

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “中国多地政府公布主政官员个人手机号 党刊忧沦“新形式主义””.

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