Psychological health of Chinese officials to be assessed

BEIJING - Psychological health assessment will be part of selection criteria while choosing senior government officials and leaders of state-owned enterprises, an official said.

“The country is undergoing a period of economic and social transformation. Officials face unexpected psychological pressures due to a variety of internal contradictions,” Wu Hanfei, chief of the examination and assessment center under the central committee of the Communist Party of China told China Daily Tuesday.

Wu said at a two-day leadership forum held at Peking University that assessing an official’s “psychological qualities” and “moral integrity” were a challenge.

A question bank for evaluating candidates is being built.

The official said 170,000 questions were proposed and the questions have been whittled down to over 60,000.

Xiao Mingzheng, chief of the human resource management research center at Peking University, said: “Officials’ psychological health is not only related to their physical health, but also influences their leadership and executive abilities in emergency situations.”

The emphasis on officials’ psychological health come after a spate of suicides.

At least 13 government officials are known to have committed suicide last year. There have also been at least eight suicides by officials so far this year, show statistics released in September on www.people.com.cn.

“Chinese officials face challenges from the conflicts that have emerged between value and morality under cultural globalization,” Liang Tiangeng, director of the human resources department under the Ministry of Agriculture, was quoted as saying.

“Officials’ psychological outlooks will change as they become more materialistic. They will care more about immediate gratification and take a fast track to advance their careers as quickly as possible,” he said.