身份红利 (shenfen hongli): Status dividend

With reports that some officials have resigned from governments then work for enterprises that have business relationship with governments, suspicions rise that they might use their past influences for profit.

Civil servants have the right to decide whether they want to work in the government system or move to the private sector. We should respect people's career choices as long as they don't violate the law and Party regulations. But senior officials' job-hopping to private companies is a sensitive issue, because they will have influenced policy-making and been privy to important government information. Some people worry that officials' job-hopping may be a way to obtain a status dividend, which may result in unfair competition in the market, rent-seeking and corruption.

To prevent officials trading their status for money in this way, we should strictly regulate the civil servant management system. On the one hand, the regulation that civil servants above a certain level cannot work for for-profit organizations relating to their former work within a certain number of years after they resign should be strictly implemented. On the other hand, we should make the official appointment and removal system more transparent, which would strengthen public supervision and eliminate or confirm their suspicions about an official's motives for changing jobs.