Declaring Officials' Property

Before this year's full session of the National People's Congress, China's law-making body, a number of retired officials and scholars called for the formulation of a law on property declaration by senior civil servants. The highlight of this proposed law is: Apart from the declaration, officials should make their property known to the public through the media.

Currently, the property supervisory system only covers civil servants' personal income within the government system, leaving their family property and additional sources of income unknown.

The deficiency of such a supervisory mechanism is obvious: The public cannot monitor officials' property. Worse still, because only personal property is covered, it is found in many corruption cases that illegal funds are channeled through officials' family members and associated businesses.

Many other countries have provided successful examples for China on how to conduct a property declaration system to combat corruption. Sweden, for example, adopted it over 230 years ago. With bank deposits now requiring real name registration and with the progress made in information technology, technically, the implementation of this system is no longer a problem.

Guangzhou Daily

Take up the Cartoon Challenge

According to a circular of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) on February 19, domestic TV broadcasters are not allowed to air foreign cartoons in primary hours (5 p.m.-9 p.m.) starting May 1. The renewed ban is one hour longer than the initial one imposed in August 2006, which is applied to the period between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

By doing so, SARFT said it aims to reserve more space for the domestic animation industry to survive and grow. However, this administrative ban may fail to deliver expected results, because when attractive homemade productions are in short supply, parents and children are very likely to turn to DVDs or the Internet to meet their needs for foreign cartoons.

The best way to cope with foreign culture is not to keep it out but to digest and absorb the fine parts of it. China's cartoon makers are expected to bravely face up to the competition for overseas counterparts by trying to develop themselves, instead of hiding behind the skirts of the authorities. If they don't take up the challenge, they are never going to progress.

Modern Express

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

According to the civil affairs authority of central China's Hubei Province, to date only 74 million yuan (about $10 million) of the promised 106 million yuan ($15 million) of charity donations has been deposited into the designated account. These statistics paint a picture that shows many businesses have taken advantage of donation promises in exchange for public recognition only. When it comes to the crunch, they don't pay up.

A nationwide survey also finds that, of the country's more than 10 million registered companies, 99 percent have never made any charity donations. Paying lip service to magnanimous gestures is more harmful to a corporation's reputation than not promising any donations at all.

Some people possibly will argue that heavy taxation burdens are preventing privately run businesses from donating to charity. They could point to unimplemented charity-related tax breaks, complicated tax exemption procedures and the fact that charity donations should not be made compulsory. All these excuses do reveal the lack of charity awareness among Chinese enterprises, which is in effect renouncing social responsibility.

To take on social responsibility is a way for businesses to improve the lives of others and in turn contribute to sustainable social development. A farsighted entrepreneur is supposed to shoulder certain social responsibilities in the process of maximizing his/her own profits.

The high-profile false promises to donate will only damage the reputation of the businesses involved while causing anger among the public.

Xiaoxiang Morning Post

Useless Facilities

It was recently found that one third of the fire hydrants in the hi-tech industrial development zone of Zhengzhou, in central China's Henan Province, don't work. In the event of a fire emergency this poses a severe threat to local people and their property.

Fire hydrants are installed with a view to minimizing losses and providing some form of fire resistance before the arrival of firefighters. To some extent, the existence of defective hydrants is even worse than no hydrants. Without fire-fighting equipment, people will remain alert to the possibility of fires; but with hydrants installed, a sense of complacency may creep in. If a fire does occur and people find the hydrants don't function, chaos could quickly follow.

Actually, there have already been tragedies resulting from dysfunctional fire control facilities in many places around the country.

Why are there so many useless hydrants? To a large degree, it is because some departments and companies install hydrants and supporting facilities only to cope with the inspection from fire departments and once the inspection is over, no repairing or maintenance of these facilities is ever carried out. As a result, no matter how sophisticated these facilities may be, they are nothing more than window dressing.

Dahe Daily