China urges strengthened supervision for anti-decadence campaign

BEIJING - The leading group of China's anti-decadence campaign has called for more exacting supervisory efforts to ensure the success of ongoing efforts to deter decadent work styles in officials.

"The campaign has entered a crucial stage and its supervision should be geared up. Problems in the current supervision work should be solved," according to a circular released Tuesday by the leading group of the campaign.

The "mass-line" campaign aims to clean up the undesirable work styles of formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance, and higher-level officials are required to oversee the progress and results.

According to the circular, supervisory officials should clearly understand the requirements set by central authorities on the implementation of the campaign, collect opinions from citizens at the grassroots level, spot officials' misbehavior and help to correct them.

The circular urged special inspection teams dispatched by the central authorities to fully grasp the situations of their target organizations or companies.

It stressed that such supervision must be strict and should focus on leading officials at the city and county levels, who are required to both check themselves for problems and oversee the behavior of lower officials.

The circular urged a quality-first attitude in the campaign to ensure that officials truly see and correct their problems.

"Efforts should be made to prevent the campaign from going astray and turning into 'half-cooked rice' and to let the people see the real changes," the circular said.

The second phase of the mass line campaign is scheduled to last until September, targeting more low-level departments and leaders, while the first phase focused on central and provincial-level departments.