Chinese people are used to asking favors from powerful people with connections to get their affairs in order. Rooting out this custom is the key to government reform, says an editorial in Beijing News. Excerpts:

Zhou Xinsheng, a member of the China People’s Political Consultative Conference, told a story that resonated among many of his fellow delegates: A daughter of a retired cadre finally persuaded the latter to let her marry a foreigner because the marriage will free the elderly official from the awkward experience of asking for favors related to his future grandchildren, like their enrollment in kindergarten, elementary and middle schools.

Zhou believes many compatriots have same familiar experience of asking favors from people with connections. People often get their affairs handled more conveniently that way.

However, this is not the rule of law. As we push forward reform and our country’s modernization, we need to reflect on this hidden rule and prompt a transformation of our society from one of acquaintances and relationships to one of strangers, and from identity connection to contractual mutual trust.

Accomplishing this transformation is equivalent to the serious matters of furthering government reform and ending intervention in resource distribution. Although favor-asking is an old tradition, its popularity nowadays also underlines the urgent need for reform of the administrative system. Many resources and fields are still controlled by administrative power, and open the door to corruption. Such power should be handed over to the market mechanism.

This is also the key to the proposed plan for institutional restructuring and function transformation of the government.