More on Chinese Civil Servants

Still on Kjeld Erik Brodsgaard's article. He noted that civil servants are classified according to the nature of their work, level of responsibility and qualification, ability and political integrity, working experience and the degree of complexity/difficulty involved in the position.

Based on such qualifications, civil servants are divided into 15 grades. And corresponding to this hierarchy is a four-component wage system : position salary, grade salary, basic salary and seniority salary.

According to this system, in 2003 the president of China (pictured) earned a salary of 3,186 yuan per month. This sum composed of position salary (1,750 yuan), grade salary (1,166 yuan), basic salary (230 yuan) and seniority salary (40 yuan).

"Basic salary and seniority salary is the same for everyone in the civil service; only position salary and grade salary vary. There have been some adjustments to the salaries of civil servants recently, but the basic system remains unchanged," Brodsgaard wrote.

He added that a civil servant without higher education will not be able to go beyond division level or become a top leader without having reached the division (chu, 处) level before the age of 40 and the department (ju，局) level before the age of 45. This, according to Brodsgaard, has resulted in a much better educated and younger bureaucracy than during Mao Zedong's and Deng Xiaoping's times.