When Mistakes Need a Manual: China’s Guidance on Acceptable Decision-making

China’s focus on anti-corruption has paralyzed local leaders. The CCP is attempting to address the issue through new rules that aim to regulate the realm of error.

By Deborah Lehr as featured on The Diplomat

In China, a nation known for five-year plans and centrally choreographed actions, it turns out that what’s really hard to plan for is fear of action. In the last year, Chinese authorities quietly released what can be described as guidance for “getting things wrong the right way” – policy guidelines outlining which mistakes by government officials are permissible and which are not.

The backdrop is President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign, which has been ongoing for a decade. In its zealousness to root out graft, the effort has resulted in a bureaucracy-wide freeze, where even mid-level cadres are so worried of missteps that they’ve stopped making decisions altogether. Initiative has become a liability.