YUP, THAT'S THE TICKET:

China tries to put its best face forward (Willy Lam, 8/06/08, Asia Times)

[T]he low caliber of central and local officials has been demonstrated by the failure of those in five western provinces to either pre-empt or adequately handle the "Tibetan uprising" this spring; the large number of tofu, or shoddily constructed, school buildings exposed by the Sichuan earthquake; and pervasive reports about collusion between police and underground gangs that was behind the riots in the provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan the past several weeks.

These disturbing incidents have notably stoked concerns among the party's top brass over shaken public confidence in the capabilities of the CCP. The dubious quality - particularly in terms of efficiency and clean governance - of huge numbers of what chairman Mao Zedong called "servants of the masses" has prompted the leadership under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao to launch what could be the largest-scale personnel reform scheme since the mid-1990s.

All it takes is a little reform and suddenly government bureaucrats are competent. You bet....

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 5, 2008 7:08 AM