Yang Ping: Don't Let "Digital Empowerment" Become a "Digital Burden"
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection [1]: "Implement the long-term mechanism for rectifying formalism to reduce burdens at the grassroots, ensuring that the broad masses of grassroots cadres have more energy to focus on implementation." Formalism manifests in various ways at the grassroots level, and digital formalism is one that cannot be ignored. The grassroots is the "last kilometer" [2] for implementing the decision-making deployments of the Party Central Committee; it must not have its hands and feet bound by various forms of digital formalism.
In exchanges with some grassroots cadres, it was found that for a period of time in the past, they often had several government affairs applications on their mobile phones. Upon opening their computers, instructions from different business systems would rise and fall one after another, leaving many cadres spinning in circles with tasks such as "clocking in and signing in" or "taking photos and uploading them," making it difficult to find the time and energy to attend to other work. Furthermore, some cadres reported that after various digital platforms are built, their maintenance and operation constitute a long-term project requiring sustained support from technical and human resources. Some localities and departments, in the construction of digital government affairs, have one-sidedly pursued "large and comprehensive" systems while lacking unified planning. Problems of redundant construction exist to varying degrees, which, besides wasting a large amount of manpower and material resources, has also created many "hollowed-out" digital government platforms that struggle to truly exert the effectiveness of digital empowerment for grassroots governance.
In August 2024, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Several Provisions on Rectifying Formalism to Reduce Burdens at the Grassroots. This is the first time that institutional norms for reducing grassroots burdens have been formulated and released in the form of intra-Party regulations, demonstrating our Party’s distinct attitude and firm determination to persistently correct the "Four Winds" and unremittingly reduce burdens at the grassroots. Through continuous efforts, "formalism at the fingertips" has been effectively rectified. At the same time, in some localities and departments, a tendency toward "digital formalism" still exists within "Internet + Government Services," where "digital empowerment" may turn into a "digital burden."
On the surface, the reason "digital empowerment" turns into a "digital burden" lies in the improper use of digital technology; however, looking at the root cause, it is due to a displaced conception of political achievements [3], a lack of responsibility, and work that is divorced from reality among some leading cadres, which causes formalism to don the cloak of digitalization and informatization. For example, some localities and departments equate "putting work online" with reform and innovation, being keen on launching a wide variety of government applications, regarding download and click volumes as visible political achievements, and concentrating evaluation indicators on superficial data such as login rates, response rates, and "like" rates. In this way, digital government tools degenerate into props for "dressing up the storefront." For another example, in some places, "data" comes from multiple sources, forming data barriers and fragmented digital government affairs. This forces grassroots cadres to frequently report the same types of data and information across multiple terminals and complete identical tasks assigned by different departments. Consequently, digital technology, rather than empowering grassroots governance, leads to reduced efficiency and increased burdens. Once "digital empowerment" becomes a "digital burden," grassroots cadres are tied down by tedious affairs such as signing in, forwarding, liking, and uploading tables, pictures, and videos to multiple authorities. It becomes difficult for them to physically reach the front lines or put their hearts into the grassroots to solve the "urgent, difficult, anxious, and hopeful" problems [4] of the masses in a face-to-face and down-to-earth manner. The alienation of "digital empowerment" into a "digital burden" may also encourage the unhealthy trend of "warfare on paper" [5] via finger-tapping and the pursuit of fraudulent "digital political achievements." Such forms of "digital formalism" not only waste administrative resources and wear down grassroots energy but, more importantly, damage the image of the Party and the government.
The "digital burdens" derived from "digital formalism" come in many names and forms. Preventing "digital empowerment" from turning into a "digital burden" requires comprehensive measures and targeted efforts. On one hand, we must educate and guide Party members and leading cadres to firmly establish a correct conception of political achievements, taking mass satisfaction and the problem-solving rate as the core indicators of "digital empowerment." We must abandon the falsification of using digital data to "dress up the storefront" and vigorously create a professional atmosphere where the focus is not on how flashy "key-to-key" interactions are, but on how busy "face-to-face" work is; spending less time "shouting in the group" and more time "walking in the fields." We must shift from "judging heroes by their traces" to "judging heroes by their actual achievements," and transform the "livelihood ledger" into a "happiness list." On the other hand, we must persist with systems thinking, streamlining and integrating various digital government platforms, focusing on breaking down data barriers, and promoting the sharing of data resources. Through "one network for all services" and "one form for universal use," we can solve the problems of multi-headed and redundant reporting, allowing grassroots cadres to "go into battle with a light pack" [6], concentrating their minds on solving difficult problems and performing practical deeds, thereby merging the "data stream" into the "happiness stream" of the masses.