At a recent meeting on the reform of State-owned enterprises, Wang Yixin, vice-governor of North China's Shanxi province, criticized some provincial SOEs for bureaucracy and low efficiency, citing as an example a local coal SOE with nearly 2,000 positions at the level of division chief.

Such kind of overstaffing is not an isolated case. It is not news to the public that reform of the management system of SOEs has made slow progress, and their managers are more like government officials than professional managers of competitive companies.

Mid-level and high-level SOE managers not only enjoy the same treatment as government officials at the same level, they also earn a market-based income that is usually higher than their civil service counterparts. This is neither fair nor reasonable.