An affair can now cost Chinese their jobs

BEIJING - An extramarital affair could ruin a Chinese government official’s career with authorities now basing assessments on grounds of good moral behaviour too.

Not only marital fidelity, officials in China’s Jiangsu province will be judged in their biannual performance assessments by their relationship with their parents, children and neighbours, Xinhua reported.

The new morality standards have also been imposed on Communist Party of China (CPC) officials.

Morality would be assessed through interviews, home visits, investigations and public submissions, said Wang Xiaodong, head of the regional CPC unit. Any evidence of immoral conduct would earn them demerit points.

“Officials should set moral examples and a failure to do so could bring the whole system of local government into disrepute,” said Jiang Jianming, local party unit chief.

Bad examples in the past had resulted in compiling the new rules, he said, adding that there was a report about a male official who had repeatedly sent vulgar text messages to his female colleagues.

In more than 95 percent of the corruption cases handled by authorities, the convicted officials were found to have extramarital lovers, Guangzhou Daily reported.