The idea that China should aim at building a service-oriented government is not a new one. The outbreak of the SARS epidemic in spring has turned up the heat on the topic again among the country's academic community.

Although the theory has not been given specific form, with core issues such as exactly how such a service-oriented government should be shaped still under debate, one thing is for sure: Some leading scholars believe that the government should not pay too much attention to economic growth, it should instead give priority to the provision of public service.

The government has played a critical role in economic development over the past 20 years. However, when the market economy has developed to a certain stage, the government's role in providing public service will have to be intensified, said Chi Fulin, executive president of the Hainan-based China Institute for Reform and Development (CIRD).

The government has been playing a relatively strong role in promoting economic development, but has been rather weak in its function of providing public goods and public services, he maintained.

To promote balanced social and economic development, the government should shoulder more responsibility in providing public service and reduce its functions of administrative examination and approval, he said.

Chi's idea was echoed by a string of scholars attending a recent symposium held in Beijing under the sponsorship of CIRD.

The fact that the government was ineffective in coping with SARS in the early days of the epidemic has revealed a series of loopholes in the public health system as well as the government's weakness in dealing with unexpected occurrences. Hence, building a service-oriented government will contribute to the government's efforts to plug the loopholes within its system and improve its ability to better serve the people, they said.

In fact, how the government can better serve the people has always been a major topic for both the Communist Party of China (CPC), the ruling party, and scholars in the public policy field.

From the slogan of serving the people whole-heartedly initiated in the era of Mao Zedong to Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents'' theory which advocates that the Party should act in accord with the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, the Party line has always been consistent: Its power is given to it by the people so it should work unselfishly for the benefit of the people.

In the same way, since Hu Jintao, Jiang's successor, stepped into power last November as CPC's general secretary and took over the presidentship from Jiang in March this year, he has expressed his view many times that he and his colleagues will empathize with the people, exercise their power for the people and work for the interests of the people.

Due to institutional drawbacks, the legacies of the previous planned economy and the lack of sufficient supervision over government officials, the malpractices and bad behaviour of some government officials have from time to time tarnished the government's image as a "servant'' of the public.

Worse, revelation of an increasing number of corruption cases has sounded the alarm call to us that some officials no longer regard themselves as "servants'' of the public and a few have even abused their power for personal gain.

Hence, in the final analysis, the reiteration of the need for a service-oriented government in academic circles is aimed at urging the government to standardize its behaviour and improve its work.

This is self-evident in the policy proposals made by scholars in the symposium.

"Since the disparity between urban and rural areas is largely manifested in the field of public service, minimum service standards should be set to cover the entire population,'' suggested Hu Angang, a renowned scholar and director of the Centre for China Studies at Tsinghua University.

According to Hu, public service itself could create a huge market demand and if it is properly directed by the government, it will achieve the dual purpose of promoting economic growth and social equity.

Zhou Tianyong, vice-director of the Office of Economic Research under the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, seems to care more for institutional improvement. Addressing the symposium, he said that in the move to a service-oriented government, the practice of making government at the grassroots level responsible only to higher authority should be changed.

To make the idea of exercising State power in the interests of the people more than just empty talk, the general public should have a say in the evaluation and appraisal of government behaviour, Zhou suggested.

The unbalanced development in rural and urban China and the role of public participation in supervising government are among the hot topics of recent years. The government has been aware of the pressure of bringing in more balanced development and giving ordinary people a bigger role in supervising the government. A series of policies have been made both at national and local levels in this regard.

Constructive suggestions from the academic circle will undoubtedly push the government move faster in the right direction.

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