It has a big impact in that it happened at a time when competition for civil servants, called “iron rice bowl,” became extremely fierce amid the employment crisis.
According to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP), Chinese authorities recently uncovered a group of people who illegally purchased personal information and registered hundreds of false tests and convicted those involved.
The incident came to the surface in February 2025 when a civil service exam applicant discovered that his name was registered in a test he had not even taken. The police, who launched an investigation with the applicant’s report, found that a teacher at the civil service examination academy and an outside person conspired to conduct a systematic false registration.
According to the court ruling, they purchased over 5,000 personal information from online store operators and then falsely registered over 700 cases over two years. The purpose was to deliberately increase the number of applicants for a specific position to make the competition look high, inducing potential competitors to give up their applications.
It was the students of the academy who benefited from the fake registration. It was a method of artificially making the competition look overheated, increasing the psychological burden of other applicants.
Those who sold personal information and those who used it to conduct false registration were all convicted of “violation of citizens’ personal information.” They were sentenced to prison terms, probation and fines, respectively. Disposition against academy teachers is said to be in progress separately.
The incident caused a stir online. It is because of the revelation of loopholes in the fair-handed national examination system and the apparent overheated competition for civil service positions.
Chinese civil servants are called “iron bowls” because they can receive various welfare benefits such as stable employment, housing subsidies and medical insurance. The recent economic slowdown and private sector employment difficulties have intensified the enthusiasm for support.
Last year, more than 2.8 million people took the written examination for central government officials, and the average competition ratio was about 74:1. Some popular positions have a competition ratio of more than 6,000:1.
In the midst of such overheating, national media are also urging the system to be supplemented one after another. The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, said, “The identity verification process should be stricter and standardized,” and pointed out that technical and institutional devices to block false registration should be strengthened. Xinhua also stressed that fairness and objectivity in selecting public officials are directly related to the trust of the government.
Experts say that the recent easing of the requirements for civil service exams to cope with the economic slowdown and aging population is another factor that has fueled intensifying competition. This is because the maximum age for applying for some positions has been raised and restrictions on people with chronic diseases have been eased, lowering the threshold for taking exams.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
