The drinking sessions, according to Qiang, also happen between bottom-level officials and higher-level department officials who have the right to distribute resources.
“Our town’s former Party secretary often told us that the bridge [in our town] happened after he toasted officials three times with strong liquor,” He Ran told NewsChina, adding that banquets where people ask for resources often require the requesting party to get drunk as a show of sincerity.
Jiang Xue argued that the atmosphere at such a banquet is more important than the amount of the liquor actually drunk. “You have to be skilled at enlivening the atmosphere to please the officials,” he told NewsChina, revealing that he managed to ask for preferential policies for his town after he boozed with higher-level department officials.
“If not for that banquet, we might not have obtained so much so quickly,” he said.
Jiang always ends with what he calls “the 30-second principle”-around a banqueting table, try everything within your power to warm the atmosphere and chose a proper time to clarify your request within 30 seconds of a toast.
Those in control of the resources to be distributed cannot avoid drinking, just because they are in a senior position. On the contrary, Qiang said, they should also drink to get closer with lower-level officials who would actually be responsible for implementing their decisions and projects.
According to Qiang, bottom-level officials are so overwhelmed by commands coming from above that they had to prioritize matters they had been directly assigned, leaving other jobs to fall by the wayside.
“Township officials respond quickly to orders coming from county government officials. But they might ignore requests that come directly from departments or bureaus, like providing figures, because these jobs don’t have any bearing on their annual appraisal,” Yan Yuxiang, director of a county-level commerce and industry bureau told NewsChina.
In this case, the relationship plays a very important role. “To be frank, cooperation depends on how they [higher-level department officials] behave at the drinking sessions. If both sides drank happily, then it will be smooth all the way,” Yan said.
“Drinking also helps bring different departments within the same organization closer,” Bai Bing, a former township official in charge of business investment in Beijing told NewsChina. “One time, our office staff had drinks with the security personnel, and I toasted each of them. That was 20 cups of strong liquor, so much that I was really sick after I got home. But after that, I found those security guards would smile at me from far away and do everything our office required well,” she added.
Drinking cuts across the whole of Chinese society, from work to social occasions, as many Chinese people consider it a form of respect and a measure of sincerity toward them if the other party is willing to drink and get drunk with them.
“Its advantages are that it’s quite cheap, you can reach a lot of people, and you can establish friendship and trust in a short time, so drinking has become the top choice for higher-level department officials to keep a good relationship with the lower-level ones,” Qiang wrote.
He cited in his paper a county mayor, whose name was not given, who said that he knew of a lower-level official who refused to do an assigned task after his superior refused to say cheers and drink with him. Another anonymous county mayor told Qiang that he would deliberately make a toast with every township official whenever he went to town.
“After all, I’m not the Party secretary [the highest county official] so how well township officials support my work depends on how well they have acknowledged me,” he told Qiang.