The Power of the Public Eye.docVIP

The Power of the Public Eye 　　BAIMIAO is an out-of-the-way township in Bazhou Dis-trict of Bazhong City,Sichuan Province.Linked only bya country road to the outside world,it nevertheless en-gineered a politically transforming experience by usinginformation technology to create public watchdogs on govern-ment spending.In February 201o,Baimiao started to make itsbudgets and expenditures public via its government website.Ev-ery item - a RMB 1.5 letter pad,a bottle of wine tagged RMB 88or a meal of RMB 1,269 - is clearly recorded.This act triggeredsome sizzling debates in the Chinese netizenry and the unknowntownship was soon in the midst of a storm of public opinion. 　　Baimiao is a typical poverty-stricken area; in 2009,the netper capita income was only RMB 3,393,and fully 95.5 percentof its 11,000 strong population are farmers cultivating less than400 square meters per capita.Still it was sophisticated enoughto benefit from the widespread controversy it generated. 　　 　　Show Us the Money 　　 　　In 2002,Zhang Yingshang was appointed secretary of theBaimiao governments discipline inspection commission.Hiscontact with locals forced on him the reality of the widening gapbetween residents increasing demands for more oversight ofgovernment operations and the backward nature of local infra-structure for doing so.Moreover,a handful of corrupt officialshad undermined the local governments credibility.On seeingus officials leave a restaurant,some people would point at us;they believed public funds footed our bill, says Zhang.Suchcensure made him feel wronged,but also started him thinking. 　　In 2005,Bazhong City put forward a new motto: Build agovernment in the sunlight. It set down regulations for publicaccess to information on government affairs.Overseeing theimplementation of the decree,Zhang Yingshang,who by thetime had been promoted to be head of the township,noticed thatmaking government affairs public is the best solution for resolv-ing contradictions between comm