By Steve Kelman
The culture of government in China, like the culture of that society in general, is quite punitive. "Punishment" is a common word. When something goes wrong, the instinct is often to arrest somebody first and ask questions later. Subordinates fear and bow to bosses in a way that reminds one of Western organizations from a century ago or more.
So it was with considerable surprise that I read an article in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post while in China recently, discussing newly announced efforts in Shanghai – a previous pacemaker in China whose local economy is now somewhat faltering – to encourage reforms in local government policy and management by stopping the punishment of well-intentioned innovations that fail.
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Posted on Jun 07, 2013 at 12:09 PM4 comments
IRS employees learn to line-dance in a video that has created a new controversy for the agency. Is it another example of wasteful spending?
As of early Monday morning, a Google search of "IRS dance video" yielded over 64 million hits, not bad for a story that only broke over the weekend. At the risk of unleashing a torrent of abuse, may I ask why?
This video lacks some of the features that gave legs to last year's GSA conference scandal. The GSA conference took place in Las Vegas (known for its glitz and excess, even though it's really an inexpensive place to hold conferences). There were photos of the offending GSA regional administrator lolling in a huge hot tub, and videos shown on TV appeared to show employees advocating being lazy or wasting money (though both videos were parodies).
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Posted on Jun 03, 2013 at 12:09 PM10 comments
While in China recently, I tried Googling a name I wanted to learn more about. Google is not blocked in China, but it has had a very poor relationship with the Chinese government, and it has moved its server to Hong Kong. Gradually, Google's Chinese market share has gotten smaller and smaller, and it is totally dominated by its home-grown competitor Baidu – though I know a number of Chinese students who want better access to American material who use Google. (China is, I believe, the only country in the world where Google doesn't have the leading market share in search.)
The words I searched were in no way politically sensitive, and more than a million hits came up. I then tried to click through to some of the articles and ... nothing happened. I didn't get the "Internet Explorer Cannot Display This Webpage" screen that typically occurs when one tries to access a blocked website, such as Facebook or a forbidden word search. I double-clicked, the entry highlighted itself, and then nothing came up – I just stayed on the Google page.
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Posted on May 30, 2013 at 12:09 PM4 comments