Ask First, Report After

In February 2019, the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued Regulations on Requesting Instructions and Reporting on Major Matters. Their rule is short: what must be requested must be requested, and what must be reported must be reported (该请示的必须请示，该报告的必须报告).

A request to a higher Party organization on a major matter must be made in advance, so that the higher level has enough time to study it and decide. Only when an emergency leaves no time to ask may an official act first. Even then, the official must report to the higher level promptly afterwards.

Edicts of Self-Blame

A zuiji zhao (罪己诏) was an edict in which a Chinese emperor admitted his own faults and changed his policies. Emperor Wen of Han issued the first formal one. The last came from the Xuantong Emperor of the Qing, after the 1911 revolution broke out.

The scholar Xiao Han counted these edicts in the Twenty-Five Histories. He found 79 emperors who had issued one.

Mao at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference

In January 1962, 7,118 leading cadres met in Beijing for the largest central work conference the Party had ever held. Its main subject was the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward. On January 30, Mao Zedong told them: “Whatever mistakes the Center has made, I am directly responsible for them, and indirectly I also have a share.”

Mao and other leaders made self-criticisms at the conference. Afterwards, Mao withdrew for a time to the “second line,” and Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping ran the daily work of the Center.

Haidilao’s Apology

In August 2017, a Beijing newspaper published a report on poor hygiene in the kitchens of two Beijing restaurants of the hotpot chain Haidilao. A reporter had worked there undercover. On August 25, Haidilao posted an apology letter on Weibo. “After investigation, the company believes that the problems disclosed in the media reports are true,” it said. They “exposed problems in our management.”

A second statement said the incidents came from deeper management problems and that the main responsibility lay with the board. Commentators summed up the response in three lines: “I carry the pot, I correct the mistake, I keep paying the staff.” The wording comes from commentators, not from the company’s statements.

The Xiaogang Pact

On a winter night in 1978, dated by Chinese Wikipedia to November 24, eighteen farmers in Xiaogang village, Anhui, signed a pact at great risk to contract the collective land to households. Each pressed a red fingerprint on a worn, creased sheet of paper. The members also promised to raise the leaders’ children until the age of 18.

In 1979 Xiaogang had a record harvest of 66,000 kilograms of grain, equal to its total from 1966 to 1970.

A Father Conceals for His Son

The Duke of She told Confucius: “In my village there is an upright man. When his father stole a sheep, he testified against him.” Confucius replied: “The upright in my village are different. A father conceals for his son, and a son conceals for his father. Uprightness lies in this.” (Analects 13.18)

Later law reflected the same principle. The Tang Code did not punish members of the same household and close relatives who concealed one another’s crimes.

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