Resigning as a Director-General from China's state system

DG-level officials in China don't resign. He did and now blogs about his life and thoughts.

眼镜湖, pronounced Yan Jing Hu and translated Glass Lake, is a unique WeChat blog in that the author, under the alias 肖甬 Xiao Yong, is apparently a former Director-General (DG) in China’s state system who voluntarily resigned from office and joined the private sector in the 2010s.

Vice Ministers, Vice Provincial Governors, and those above the vice-ministerial level are considered high-ranking officials in the 1.4-billion-strong, highly hierarchical China, and DGs are the level just below vice ministers. DGs rarely leave the state system of their own volition before retirement, making Xiao Yong a special case. That he has written a blog regularly since 2023 makes it even more unique.

Xiao Yong hasn’t identified himself in the blog but he apparently didn’t want to make it a secret. He has left so many details of his education and career to be identified, partly because so few DGs are known to have resigned from office. But he appears to insist on not making his real name known. So I’ll just say there is no question he was indeed a DG in northwestern China after spending over a decade in central authorities in Beijing. He grew up in poverty in eastern Shandong Province and was a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics and Duke University.

Below is Xiao Yong’s blog on January 4, 2024, talking about his resignation.

No one resigns from their job without a specific reason, whether they work in or outside the [state] system [meaning jobs in Party and Government organs, state-owned enterprises, and public institutions). The romantic and carefree idea "wider world outside is yet to be seen" is not realistic in life.

In early 2016, after nearly 20 years of working in the state system, I started to consider resigning from my public office. At that time, my mother had passed away three years before. Her death made me realize that if one's struggle cannot even afford to help their own parents, then such an endeavor is meaningless. It was also at that time that my son just started middle school. Working far away from home made me aware that no job or money could compensate for the absence of a father's love when his child needs it most. Long-time working on the plateau also impaired my health. Even in the capital city of that province, a thorough health checkup was not available.

Although working in a foreign affairs department enabled me to know many high-ranking officials, in reality, none of them could help me find a job. After quitting my job, I registered on a recruitment website. I provided true information about myself but aliased my name. And I set my job-hunting information as "invisible" to my previous workplaces to avoid embarrassment. In less than a week, headhunters started calling me.

I remember the first headhunter who called and asked about the authenticity of my information, saying they had never encountered a Director-General level official who had resigned voluntarily. I assured them that except for my name, all the information was true, and I hoped they would forgive me for not using my real name. The headhunter said that such self-protection behavior was completely fine. They even suggested that I should focus on large corporations, as small and medium-sized enterprises could not accommodate such a high-ranking official.

When being interviewed by one of the top domestic private companies, their foremost question was whether I could help them get in touch with certain high-ranking officials. The same question was also asked by HRs of a leading solar energy company, inquiring whether I could directly contact a provincial governor to arrange a meeting with their chairman.

However, my understanding of managing governmental relations for a business was about getting familiar with the procedures and mechanism of government departments instead of getting direct contact with high-ranking officials, despite the fact that I had never been engaged in such governtal relations in a business. With frequent changes and dismissals of officials [in China now], it is useless knowing an official today who is likely to be transferred or imprisoned tomorrow.

I patiently explained this to them. In fact, I knew several provincial Secretaries of the Communist Party of China, provincial governors, and even higher-ranking officials, but I had never asked them for a favor. Good relationships can only be maintained by not troubling others. Once somebody starts exploiting these relationships for personal gain, even the leaders themselves feel repulsed. However, some companies are straightforward in this question, thinking that money talks, and they can definitely find someone who has close contact with those high-ranking officials. Not long ago, I had an interview with a senior executive of a large private enterprise who mentioned the wish they once had. Seven years have passed, and they still couldn't find the one with the contacts they wanted.

The second common problem I encountered while job-hunting was skepticism about my resignation. During the final stages of the interview process of two companies, both bosses thought that I must have made a mistake in my work, otherwise, I wouldn't resign. Indeed, I became a Director-General level official in 2010 at the age of 40. In 2016, I have already been at such a level for six years, but I was still holding the record of being the youngest Director-General in the province, and one of the youngest nationwide. Probably no one believed that quitting the job in the state system under this circumstance was normal. Later, when I accompanied the chairman of the company I joined (one of the two companies I mentioned above) to visit one provincial Secretary of the CPC I had previously worked with. The provincial Secretary, who was a deputy provincial Secretary at the time of my resignation, told the chairman, "You should thank me for encouraging him to leave." ("Him" refers to the author.)

Another unavoidable problem was the salary. Resigning was a matter only known to me, my family and a few superiors. At that time, I had no concept of how much pay I could get and I had no experience to learn from. But I thought that the monthly salary would be higher than what I earned within the system, at least 500,000 yuan (70,000 USD) per year. Later, when I mentioned this during a career planning lecture at a university, the students booed. They thought an annual salary of 500,000 yuan was an unattainable dream, yet I considered it as the bottom line. It is true that under different circumstances, with different roles and backgrounds, perspectives can vary greatly.

Although it's a sensitive topic, I thought it necessary to make up my mind . I stumbled upon a headhunter's comment online, saying that in general, the minimum annual salary provided for Director-General level officials was 3 million yuan (420,000 USD); 2 million yuan (280,000 USD) for Deputy Director-Generals; one million yuan (140,000 USD) for Directors and half a million yuan (70,000 USD) for Deputy Directors. Thus, when negotiating the salary standard with the first company I signed with in Shenzhen, they agreed without hesitation. However, due to other reasons, I did not end up working at this company. According to the information I gathered years later, the standard is quite reasonable.

There was also a large internet company that made contact with me. We discussed the salary and other details of the job for a long time and I've been to their Beijing headquarters multiple times, but they never mentioned anything about my physical office during the whole process of our negotiation. I couldn't help myself to ask where my physical office was when I was about to join. The company executive said I didn't need to come to the office regularly, as governmental relations often require working outside the company. Later I learned that in many foreign enterprises, those who are in charge of governmental relations are allowed to work from home. Given that I have worked in the state system for such a long time, it seemed that I could not have a sense of belonging without a physical office. So I insisted on having one. They immediately set up an office equipped with fine furniture, a desktop computer, and a high-end version Apple laptop for me. Unfortunately, due to various reasons, I did not join this company in the end.

After eight years since I quit my job in the state system, I no longer have the anxiety and fear I had then when I recall those memories. Although I don't know how things will go in the next few years, I can proudly say that I have survived.

Today, I share these things to tell friends still working in the state system who are thinking of leaving that the world outside is full of uncertainties. Fifteen years ago, when I was still in the state system, I often went to a restaurant in Beijing and took it as a place for me to write articles. Over time, I became familiar with the staff there. Once, when chatting with the security team leader, he said, "The biggest advantage of people working in the state system is that they and their family are protected by an invisible umbrella. No one dares to bully those who work in the state."

The security team leader's words, though not entirely accurate, do make some sense. Once someone leaves the system, he or she will be under no protection and receive no extra rewards. People outside the state system can only count on themselves.

If you are prepared to cope, if you can swallow your pride and put a CV on a recruitment website, you are advised to give it a try.