作者：周恒
中国工程基建行业，因其建筑高度高、规模大、建造速度快和造价低闻名世界，被世人称之为基建狂魔。从2000年开始算起，短短20多年时间，中国建设出天量的房屋建筑工程，铁路工程、公路工程，水利工程和机场工程，这些工程的数量和规模都跃居世界前列。
然而盛名之下，其实难副。虽然北上广深和新一线城市的摩天大楼一座比一座高，CBD的夜景灯光秀璀璨夺目，可是白天的时候这些大楼里空空荡荡，与夜晚的表面热闹形成强烈反差。很多城市的高档写字楼空置率都在50%以上。
全中国的‘铁公基’到处开工建成，很多省区把高铁修到每一个地级市，高速公路修到每一个县城，可是大部分时候人们看到的是高铁跑空车、高速公路没车走。中国的政府的钱袋子：各地城投公司、各级交通投资公司、铁路投资公司、水利投资公司债务高企，投资回报率远远达不到当初预期。公布出来的中国城投类债务只是冰山一角。当利息都还不上之后，暴雷就成了不可避免的事。这些债务最终都将由普通人来买单。
本人在中国基建行业工作十五年，有过央国企、私企，国内和海外工程项目经历，比较熟悉中国大陆不能说的工程圈真相。现在身在自由世界，我试着讲讲那些不为外行人和外国人知晓的事情。
中国工程基建行业是利益集团攫取个人私利的沃土，是普通人堆积血泪苦难的牢笼。这里说的利益集团指的是中共各级官员、官员亲属以及依附这些官员的掮客、大型工程相关公司实控人。
为什么中国工程基建行业能成为基建狂魔？我认为至少有三方面的原因。
一是中国官员的政治考核指标，以GDP为主。搞工程项目见效快。两千年后中国经济高速增长的三驾马车之一，投资主要就是基建投资。工程项目建设资金大且密集，便于贪腐和权力寻租，几乎所有的贪官都涉及帮助他人承揽工程项目。
二是土地财政和城镇化建设。全国土地分为城镇土地和农村集体土地城镇土地归国有农村土地归村集体所有个人完全没有土地所有权。个人只有土地租住使用权。土地财政促使地方官员天然推高土地使用价格，所有好地段的土地出让价格高企，房价跟着高涨。城镇化建设促使地方官员把农村土地划为城镇，将农民从农村迁移到城镇中去安置。有的农民得到安置房，有的是拿的货币补贴或者购房券，限定时间去城里买房。
三是80、90年代出生率高和低人权低福利社会结合，形成的大量廉价劳动力市场。这些人当中大量的农民工用血汗将基建狂魔托起。庞大人口基数和高出生率造成的人口涌入城市，也将房价推向高位。
中国工程用地的征地拆迁，充满了不公和欺压。官方做征地面积测量时，经常采用双重标准，以减少补偿支出。同样的拆迁家庭因为测量不一样导致补偿金差异巨大。所谓谈判其实是欺骗、威逼，谈判不成即暴力强拆是普遍现象。重大项目拆迁补偿资金从上至下每个层级截留至少10%，下拨到拆迁户手里时已经被砍掉一半。拆迁户求告无门，上访又会被黑警暴力维稳。普通人面对高房价，要么买不起，要么花光六个钱包（父母、岳父母、夫妻俩）凑首付背房贷。疫情之后房价下跌，如今很多城市房价已经不值原价一半，房子卖不掉。即使卖出了还欠银行一大笔钱。夫妻任何一方一旦失业，家庭就会坠入深渊。
六千万建筑工人游离在中国各个城市的工地上。之所以说游离是因为他们中的大部分没有社保，也没有稳定的工作。工作不稳定，就经常换新工地。这个项目做了几个月就没得做了，只好继续找下一个工地。
工地的工人劳动强度大，一天十几个小时是普遍情况；危险性大，劳动保护措施差，工地发生死伤事故成为普遍现象。
曾经有一位项目经理说，平均每建一栋商住楼就要死一个人。为了保护地方官员的乌纱帽，各个项目几乎都会为了瞒报死亡数字而隐瞒真相，和伤亡人员本人或家属选择私下和解。
工资低、无工会、无社保、无医保，血汗钱还经常被拖欠。建筑工人居住环境恶劣，他们大都挤在工地简易板房里，一间18平方米的板房住着十几个人，甚至有些板房夏天没有空调冬天没有热水淋浴，房间里臭气熏天，完全可以称作是奴役场所。曾经被媒体曝光的比亚迪巴西工厂建筑工人生活居住的条件，在中国包工头看起来已经是国内天花板级别，可是在巴西劳工部门看来，那样的对待建筑工人就是奴役行为，他们对比亚迪公司进行了处罚。如果按照巴西政府的标准，全中国几千万建筑工人没有一个不是被奴役的。
中国工程基建行业形式主义，官僚主义大行其道。大中型基建项目报批时，各级政府官员为了自己的政绩和后续贪腐敛财，会在自己管辖范围内疯狂推动项目报批。相关的程序流程和文件都可以为此进行服务，不论是项目建议书、可行性研究报告还是环境影响评估报告等。比如各种运动会和会议的举办都将是大型工程项目的兴建理由。城市运动会、省运会、全运会、亚运会、奥运会，有些省份每个地级市轮流举办旅游发展大会，各种论坛、上海合作组织会议、APEC等国际会议更是极尽奢华的建设项目。至于运动会和会议完事之后，各个楼堂馆所长期空置如何应对，则无人关注也没有人敢质疑。纳税人的钱就是这样被挥霍掉。
项目立项批复阶段，那些依附官员的掮客、白手套就开始介入，他们第一时间掌握关键信息和重要人脉，提前把项目控制权拿在手里。这里面权钱交易、权色交易当然是不会缺席的。
在工程项目招投标阶段，发包单位、招标机构和评标专家全部都是在走过场。中国工程项目招投标的本质就是用流程的严肃性来包装结果的预设性，用程序的合规性来粉饰内定的合理性，用激烈的竞争性来佐证报价的公允性，用博弈的复杂性来确定权力的稳定性。
我的家乡湖南省曾有这样的情况：前期运作项目的实际控制人，会在投标时安排多家挂靠单位进行围标，如若出现意外没有被自己串通好的单位中标，而是其他的投标单位碰运气中标了。这个项目实际控制人会和这个打鸟枪的中标单位商谈。由他来挂靠中标单位的资质并给中标单位管理费，这个挂靠管理费通常是1%到2%的施工合同造价。后面当然是实际控制人来管理项目，也就是说无论中标人是哪一家，最后项目实际控制人都是前期运作的那个掮客。我在广东做工程的时候，知道有身后站着红三代家族成员的潮汕籍掮客，他手里有大量的大项目控制权。上亿甚至十亿元人民币级别的项目在他一张纸上，他能决定哪一张表格里的哪个大项目由哪一个央企施工单位中标。那些施工央企三级单位的一把手，在自己单位都是说一不二、颐指气使的“皇帝”。然而，为了拿到这些大项目，这些人在这个掮客大老板面前却不得不唯唯诺诺、恭恭敬敬地讨好，只求掮客能给他们一个项目挂靠，仅仅是挂靠，还不是真的给项目的全部控制权。最常见的就是给20%左右的工程量让这个央企来施工，剩下的大部分工程则由掮客组织自己信得过的项目部来施工。对外统一以该央企的名义来实施。
所谓的随机评标专家，当然是提前就被掮客安排买通的。评标专家会在技术标评比上给内定的那一家打高分；给内定的中标单位项目经理视频面试时打高分，甚至视频面试的项目经理穿什么衣服、他办公桌上摆什么花和饮料都能成为暗号。
施工单位和监理单位中标的注册建造师和总监理工程师，按理来说是施工项目经理部和项目监理部的老大，可实际上这两人大概率是挂靠的傀儡。前面讲过，因为大部分的工程项目都是有掮客老板实际控制的，他们拿到项目是要赚取巨额利润的，不可能由被挂靠单位的专业人员来实际管理项目。他们一定是安排自己人来实际管理这个项目。通常自己人的老大是施工项目经理部的执行经理，监理项目部的总监代表。
施工单位和监理单位的转包、违法分包是普遍存在的。先说监理，监理本身是受建设单位委托来监督管理施工单位的，实际情况却是很多监理单位中标后转包给私人。监理单位跟施工单位同流合污，每一个劳务班组每个月都要向监理人员上交所谓“加班费”，每月3000元起步。这已经成为监理明规则。甚至有监理人员的监理日志都要施工单位的施工员或者资料员来写。小监理吃拿卡要，大监理在重大施工变更和重大偷工减料问题中进行利润分成。
施工单位内部更是乱象丛生。机关里面工作人员大都是内部领导安排的裙带关系，或者为了照顾外部政府或者相关管理部门的亲属，甚至有些官二代在公司吃空饷，从来不上班却照发薪水。单位领导只管接项目，价格多么低的项目都敢接。领导自己的经营任务完成了，他们就能领取巨额奖金。那些低价中标的项目还没有开工就已经预亏损至少10%，公司领导却要求项目经理部所有员工签署扭亏为盈责任状。
央企国企施工单位里形式主义、官僚主义和造假之风盛行。中标通知书载明的建造师项目经理无权决定项目经理部组成人员名单、材料机械和劳务分包、项目经理部资金使用情况等，以上这些关键权力全部由施工单位领导行使。然而，官大一级压死人！施工单位的党委书记兼董事长是绝对的独裁，比他级别低半级的党委副书记和总经理都可以被欺负到像奴才一样跪倒在他面前。
施工单位内部派系和团伙林立，互相打压内斗。内部评优评先全看关系亲疏程度而定，高级职称评审基本也是如此进行。与高级领导关系好的、愿意送礼送钱的就能晋升高级工程师、教授级高级工程师，不懂技术就花钱买论文造假履历和项目业绩。全公司的科技成果，如发明专利和论文要想发表出来，必须将第一第二作者让给公司领导或者领导青睐的员工。这样那些有真水平而又不站队、不送礼、不送钱的员工，就会被排挤出去。典型的劣币驱逐良币。最基层管理单位的项目经理要承担现场安全管理、合同管理、信息管理、质量控制、进度控制和成本控制以及关系协调的责任，出了安全事故，项目经理要进监狱，出质量事故是要项目经理终生负责，项目经理工资并不高，外人传说的项目完工奖金也不是确定的。这就造成了专业人员的权力没有、责任巨大、利益不确定，形成的责权利不对等的情况。
施工单位内部招投标混乱。乱到什么程度呢？为了证明内部分包的合理合法性，施工项目部的工程部、技术部和合约部共同为内定的分包单位做假投标资料。甚至为它寻找另外两家陪标单位并为之做投标书。
另一个让一线管理人员深恶痛绝的是文山会海。一线员工本职工作都忙不过来，结果主要精力用在了应付施工单位上级机关的各种报表、无纸化办公系统、精细化管理制度、学习习近平讲话精神、学习强国等，新冠疫情三年封控还要每天报送防控疫情情况，以及应付各种检查。两天一小检，三天一大检。检查就要停工，搞卫生、搞形象，做PPT汇报材料。最疯狂的时候，我在的工地一天开七场会议，迎接七批次的检查工作。上级领导检查项目表面上说是“四不两直”也就是不打招呼、不听汇报、不要迎接、不要陪同、直奔现场、直奔一线，可实际上都是要打招呼、要听汇报、要招待、要陪同的！由于分包单位都是施工单位领导指定的，他们大概率不会听从基层项目经理的指令。对于不服从管理的分包单位，项目经理和项目管理人员也无可奈何，只能进行表面上的罚款，然而这些罚款最终都会被公司领导和分包单位老板私下的几杯酒给取消掉。分包单位要拿到施工进度款也要看关系远近，而且每一次请款都要到施工单位各个部门请客吃饭、送礼才能完成签字手续。即使走完全部手续，也不一定能拿到全部应付金额。要钱难成为普遍现象。
每到节点工期，青年突击队和党员先锋队的旗帜和横幅就拉出来摆拍一下，拍完照就走。而大家都知道，真正干活的是分包队伍。这就是一场表演，但所有人都得演，而且不能演穿帮。
为什么大家都觉得累，却还是停不下来？因为很多表演不是为了意义，而是为了自己的饭碗安全。这是理解形式主义的关键。之所以被反复要求留痕，不是因为它真的能提高效率，而是一旦出了问题，可以证明我没问题。开会是证明部署过了，发文是证明要求过了，签到是证明人到过了，照片是证明活动开展过了…以上种种，根子上都是低信任环境里的自保逻辑。
当一个系统里，真实表达的成本太高，安全表达就会越来越多。当安全表达越来越多，真实问题就会越来越晚被看见。当真实问题越来越晚被看见，大家就只能用更多形式去弥补现实的空洞。大家都被它消耗，大家也都在某种程度上维持，这就是形式主义的循环。它不需要任何一个人真心相信它，它只需要确信每个人都不敢第一个戳穿它。
施工现场管理口号震天响，标语满天飞。实际上只注重外在，浮于形式。现场的安全教育、安全交底、一会三卡全部在文件上造假。涉及重大风险的安全专项方案专家评审大都是提前花钱买通的专家来评审，提出的问题不痛不痒。没有人真正沉下心来发现安全隐患并且消除隐患，质量管理自然千疮百孔。施工内部三检留在口头，监理盘站、巡视和平行检验全部流于形式，大都是在造假资料。几乎所有的混凝土结构工程施工都是3至7天完成作业，没有一个项目是等待28天标准养护工作结束再进行下一步工作的。这样做违背混凝土结构强度上升客观规律，导致将来才会产生的混凝土裂缝将提前产生，质量大打折扣，结构使用年限也大大缩短。
代表政府行使监督权职责的质量监督站，每次来检查只要施工单位给钱就行，明知是挂靠项目却假装不知道，走一下过场，看看表面，看看那些假资料，就算完成任务。甚至很多时候连现场都不去，而改为送检，至于送检的样本是来自现场施工的样本，还是专门为了送检而做的施工样本，没有人去关心。
质量控制最重要的第三方检测大都是被施工单位贿赂买通，伙同施工单位一起编造假检测结果。本人亲历过的某项目大量的桥梁二类桩基和部分三类桩基不经任何处置，直接由检测机构造假改成一类桩……港珠澳大桥报道出来的造假丑闻震惊世界，在这种项目上都敢造假，可见国内质量管理又会有多么不堪！
上述种种情况都是在表明所谓的基建狂魔，从始至终充满官僚主义、形式主义虚假和广大普通人的血泪，更可怕的是将来不可避免的更大的债务雪崩和工程质量危机。
借用中国共产党的一句话来讽刺一下：好日子还在后头！
编辑：胡景 校对：冯仍 翻译：戈冰
Infrastructure Monster Rife with Falsehoods, Blood, and Tears
By Zhou Heng
China’s engineering and infrastructure industry is world-renowned for its high architectural heights, large scales, fast construction speeds, and low costs, earning it the global moniker of “Infrastructure Monster.” Counting from the year 2000, in a short span of just over 20 years, China has constructed an astronomical volume of housing construction projects, railway engineering, highway engineering, water conservancy engineering, and airport engineering, with both the quantity and scale of these projects jumping to the forefront of the world.
However, beneath its famous reputation, reality falls short of the acclaim. Although the skyscrapers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and new first-tier cities grow taller one after another, and the night light shows in the CBDs are dazzlingly brilliant, during the daytime, these tall buildings are empty, forming a sharp contrast with the superficial bustling at night. High-end office building vacancy rates in many cities are above 50 percent.
Across China, “railways, highways, and infrastructure” have commenced construction and been completed everywhere. Many provinces and autonomous regions have built high-speed railways to every prefecture-level city and expressways to every county town; yet, most of the time, what people see are high-speed trains running empty and expressways with no cars traveling on them. The money bags of the Chinese government—local urban construction investment companies (LGFVs), transport investment companies at all levels, railway investment companies, and water conservancy investment companies—are saddled with soaring debts, with return on investment falling far short of initial expectations. The publicized Chinese urban construction investment debts are merely the tip of the iceberg. When even the interest cannot be repaid, a debt explosion becomes inevitable. These debts will ultimately be paid for by ordinary people.
I have worked in China’s infrastructure industry for fifteen years, with experience in state-owned enterprises, central enterprises, private enterprises, as well as domestic and overseas engineering projects, and I am quite familiar with the unspoken truths of the engineering circle in mainland China. Now located in the free world, I will try to talk about those matters unknown to outsiders and foreigners.
China’s engineering and infrastructure industry is a fertile soil for interest groups to seize personal gain, and a cage where ordinary people accumulate blood, tears, and suffering. The interest groups mentioned here refer to CCP officials at all levels, relatives of officials, brokers attached to these officials, and actual controllers of companies related to large-scale engineering projects.
Why was China’s engineering and infrastructure industry able to become an “Infrastructure Monster”? I believe there are at least three reasons.
First, Chinese officials’ political evaluation indicators were primarily based on GDP. Launching engineering projects yields rapid results. Investment—mainly infrastructure investment—was one of the “three-horse carriage” driving China’s rapid economic growth after the year 2000. Engineering project construction involves large and dense capital, facilitating corruption and power-for-money rent-seeking; almost all corrupt officials are involved in helping others contract engineering projects.
Second, land finance and urbanization construction. Nationwide land is divided into urban land and rural collective land; urban land is state-owned, rural land belongs to village collectives, and individuals have no land ownership at all. Individuals only hold land lease and use rights. Land finance naturally drives local officials to inflate land use prices, keeping land transfer prices high in all prime locations, which causes housing prices to surge accordingly. Urbanization construction prompts local officials to designate rural land as urban, relocating farmers from rural areas into towns for resettlement. Some farmers received resettlement housing, while others took monetary subsidies or home-purchase vouchers with time limits to buy homes in the city.
Third, the high birth rate in the 1980s and 1990s combined with a low-human-rights and low-welfare society, forming a massive market of cheap labor. Among these people, a vast number of migrant workers buoyed the “Infrastructure Monster” with their sweat and blood. The population influx into cities caused by a huge population base and high birth rates also pushed housing prices to high levels.
Land acquisition and demolition for Chinese engineering projects are full of injustice and oppression. When officials measure land acquisition areas, they often employ double standards to reduce compensation expenditures. Identical demolished households suffer vast differences in compensation money due to varying measurements. So-called negotiations are actually deception and coercion; violent forced demolitions when negotiations fail are a widespread phenomenon. Compensation funds for major project demolitions are intercepted by at least 10% at every level from top to bottom, already slashed by half by the time they are allocated to the hands of demolished households. The demolished households have no doors to turn to for help, and petitioning leads to violent “stability maintenance” by black police. Facing high housing prices, ordinary people either cannot afford to buy or drain six wallets (parents, parents-in-law, and the couple) to gather down payments and shoulder mortgages. Housing prices dropped after the pandemic; today, housing prices in many cities are not even worth half their original value, and homes cannot be sold. Even if sold, a large debt is still owed to the bank. Once either spouse loses a job, the family plunges into the abyss.
Sixty million construction workers drift across job sites in various cities in China. The reason they are said to drift is that most of them have no social security and no stable jobs. Unstable work leads to frequently changing to new job sites. After working a few months on a project, there is no work left to do, leaving no choice but to keep searching for the next job site.
Workers on job sites endure high labor intensity, with over ten hours a day being commonplace; high danger, poor labor protection measures, and fatal or injury accidents occurring on job sites have become widespread phenomena.
A project manager once said that on average, every commercial residential building constructed costs one life. To protect the official hats of local officials, nearly every project chooses to conceal the truth to underreport death numbers, opting for private out-of-court settlements with the casualties themselves or their family members.
Low wages, no labor unions, no social security, and no medical insurance, with their hard-earned money frequently kept in arrears. Construction workers live in terrible environments; most of them are squeezed into temporary makeshift prefabricated houses on job sites, where a single 18-square-meter room houses over a dozen people. Some prefabricated rooms even lack air conditioning in the summer and hot water showers in the winter, leaving the rooms foul-smelling—they can fully be called places of enslavement. The living and residential conditions of construction workers at BYD’s Brazil factory, once exposed by the media, were viewed by Chinese labor contractors as top-tier standards in China; however, in the eyes of Brazil’s labor authority, such treatment of construction workers constituted enslavement, and they penalized BYD. According to the standards of the Brazilian government, not a single one among tens of millions of construction workers across China is not enslaved.
Formality for formality’s sake and bureaucracy run rampant in China’s engineering and infrastructure industry. When submitting large and medium-sized infrastructure projects for approval, government officials at all levels frantically push project approvals within their jurisdictions for the sake of their political achievements and subsequent corruption and wealth accumulation. Relevant procedures, workflows, and documents can all serve this purpose—whether project proposal reports, feasibility study reports, or environmental impact assessment reports. For example, hosting various sports games and conferences serves as justification for constructing large-scale engineering projects. City games, provincial games, the National Games, the Asian Games, and the Olympic Games—and in some provinces, every prefecture-level city takes turns hosting tourism development conferences, while various forums, Shanghai Cooperation Organization meetings, APEC, and other international conferences feature exceedingly lavish construction projects. As for how to address the long-term vacancies of various public buildings and venues after the sports games and conferences conclude, no one pays attention, and no one dares to question. That is how taxpayers’ money is squandered away.
During the project approval phase, brokers and white gloves attached to officials begin to intervene, grasping key information and crucial connections at the earliest moment to secure control of the project in advance. Power-for-money transactions and power-for-sex transactions, of course, are never absent.
During the engineering project bidding phase, the project owners, bidding agencies, and bid evaluation experts are all merely going through the motions. The essence of Chinese engineering project bidding is to package predetermined outcomes through the solemnity of procedures, gloss over the rationality of insider choices with procedural compliance, corroborate the fairness of quotes with fierce competition, and consolidate the stability of power through the complexity of maneuverings.
In my hometown of Hunan Province, there was once such a situation: the actual controller who operated the project early on would arrange multiple affiliated entities during bidding to collude and rig the bids. If an accident occurred and a colluded entity failed to win the bid, but another bidding entity happened to win by luck, the actual controller of the project would negotiate with this lucky winning entity. He would affiliate under the qualification of the winning entity and pay them a management fee—typically 1% to 2% of the construction contract cost. Afterward, the project would naturally be managed by the actual controller, meaning that no matter which entity won the bid, the actual controller of the project ultimately remained the broker who operated it in the early stage. When I worked on engineering projects in Guangdong, I knew a Teochew broker backed by members of a third-generation red family, who held control over a vast number of major projects. On a single sheet of paper listing projects worth hundreds of millions or even billions of RMB, he could decide which major project in which table row would be won by which central state-owned enterprise construction entity. The heads of the third-tier entities of those central construction enterprises were “emperors” within their own units, arbitrary and bossy. Yet, to obtain these major projects, these people had to be submissive and respectfully fawn before this big broker boss, merely begging the broker to grant them a project affiliation—just affiliation, not even handing over full control of the project. The most common practice was to give about 20% of the construction volume for this central enterprise to execute, while the remaining majority of the project was constructed by a project management team trusted and organized by the broker himself. Externally, the project was executed uniformly under the name of that central enterprise.
The so-called randomly selected bid evaluation experts are, of course, arranged and bribed by brokers in advance. The bid evaluation experts will give high scores on technical evaluation to the predetermined entity, and award high scores during the video interview of the designated winning unit’s project manager—even details such as what clothing the project manager wears during the video interview or what flowers and beverages are placed on his desk can serve as secret signals.
The registered constructors and chief supervision engineers who win the bids for construction units and supervision units should, in theory, be the bosses of the construction project management department and the project supervision department; however, in reality, these two individuals are most likely affiliated puppets. As mentioned earlier, because the vast majority of engineering projects are actually controlled by broker bosses who take on projects to earn enormous profits, it is impossible for professional personnel from the affiliated entities to actually manage the project. They will inevitably arrange their own people to actually manage this project. Usually, the boss among their own people is the executive manager of the construction project management department, and the chief supervisor’s representative of the supervision project department.
Subletting and illegal subcontracting by construction units and supervision units are widespread. Speaking first of supervision, the supervision entity itself is entrusted by the construction unit to supervise and manage the construction unit, yet the actual situation is that many supervision units sublet to private individuals after winning bids. Supervision units collude with construction units, and every labor team must hand over a so-called “overtime fee” to supervision personnel every month, starting from 3,000 RMB monthly. This has become an explicit rule of supervision. There are even supervision personnel whose supervision logs have to be written by the construction unit’s constructors or documenters. Small supervisors engage in petty extortion and bribery, while big supervisors share profits in major construction changes and severe cutting of corners.
Chaos is even more rampant within construction units. Most office personnel inside headquarters are nepotic connections arranged by internal leaders, or favor-based hires to accommodate relatives of external government or relevant regulatory authorities; some second-generation officials even draw salaries for ghost jobs in the company, never coming to work yet receiving paychecks as usual. Unit leaders care only about securing projects and dare to accept projects no matter how low the price is. Once the leaders complete their own operational targets, they can collect huge bonuses. Those low-bid projects are already at a projected loss of at least 10% before construction even begins, yet company leaders demand that all employees in the project management department sign responsibility pledges to turn losses into profits.
Formality for formality’s sake, bureaucracy, and the wind of falsification run rampant in central state-owned and state-owned construction enterprises. The constructor project manager specified in the notice of award has no right to determine the roster of the project management department, material, machinery, and labor subcontracts, or the use of funds in the project management department—all these key powers are exercised entirely by the leaders of the construction unit. However, a higher rank oppresses to death! The Party secretary and chairman of the board of the construction unit exercises absolute dictatorship, to the point where the deputy Party secretary and general manager, who are half a rank lower, can be bullied into kneeling before him like servants.
Factions and cliques abound within construction units, suppressing each other in internal struggles. Internal awards and commendations are determined entirely by the degree of personal intimacy, and senior professional title evaluations are conducted in basically the same manner. Those who have good relationships with senior leaders and are willing to give gifts and money can be promoted to senior engineers or professor-level senior engineers; those who do not understand technology spend money to buy papers, forge resumes, and fake project achievements. If scientific and technological achievements across the company, such as invention patents and academic papers, are to be published, the first and second authorship must be yielded to company leaders or employees favored by leaders. In this way, employees who possess true competence but do not take sides, give gifts, or offer money are squeezed out. A classic case of bad money driving out good. Project managers in the most grassroots management units must bear responsibility for site safety management, contract management, information management, quality control, schedule control, cost control, and relationship coordination; if a safety accident occurs, the project manager goes to prison, and if a quality accident occurs, the project manager bears lifelong responsibility. Yet the project manager’s salary is not high, and the project completion bonuses rumored by outsiders are by no means guaranteed. This results in a situation where professional personnel have no power, bear immense responsibility, and receive uncertain benefits, forming an inequality of responsibilities, rights, and interests.
Internal bidding within construction units is in total chaos. To what extent is it chaotic? To prove the legitimacy and legality of internal subcontracting, the engineering department, technology department, and contracts department of the construction project management team jointly forge bidding materials for the predetermined subcontractor. They even locate two other accompanying bidders for it and prepare their bid dossiers as well.
Another issue that front-line management personnel harbor deep hatred for is the mountain of paperwork and sea of meetings. Front-line employees are already too busy with their primary duties, yet their main energy is spent coping with various reporting forms from superior headquarters of the construction unit, paperless office systems, fine-grained management systems, studying the spirit of Xi Jinping’s speeches, and using “Xuexi Qiangguo” (Study the Powerful Nation). During the three years of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, they also had to report epidemic prevention and control status daily and deal with all kinds of inspections—a minor inspection every two days and a major inspection every three days. Inspections require halting work, performing cleanups, sprucing up the site image, and making PPT presentation materials. At the most insane moment, the job site I was at held seven meetings in a single day and received seven batches of inspection teams. When superior leaders inspect projects, they claim on the surface to practice “Four Nots and Two Directs”—that is, no advance notice, no briefing listening, no reception, no accompaniment, going directly to the scene, and going directly to the front line—yet in reality, advance notice must be given, briefings must be heard, hospitality must be provided, and accompaniment is mandatory! Because subcontractors are designated by construction unit leaders, they are highly likely to ignore instructions from grassroots project managers. Regarding disobedient subcontractors, project managers and project management staff are helpless and can only issue superficial fines; however, these fines will ultimately be canceled over a few private drinks between company leaders and subcontractor bosses. Subcontractors getting construction progress payments also depends on the closeness of their relationships, and every payment request requires dining, wining, and gift-giving across all departments of the construction unit to complete the signature procedures. Even after completing all procedures, they may not necessarily receive the full amount payable. Difficulty in collecting payment has become a widespread phenomenon.
Whenever a milestone construction deadline approaches, the flags and banners of the “Youth Commando Team” and “Party Member Vanguard Team” are pulled out for a quick photo opportunity, only to be packed away as soon as the photos are taken. Yet everyone knows that those actually doing the work are the subcontracted crews. This is a performance, but everyone has to act, and no one can let the cover slip.
Why does everyone feel exhausted yet remain unable to stop? Because many performances are not for the sake of meaning, but for the security of one’s own rice bowl. This is the key to understanding formality for formality’s sake. The reason trace-leaving is repeatedly demanded is not because it can truly improve efficiency, but because once a problem arises, it can prove that I am not at fault. Holding a meeting proves that deployment was done; issuing a document proves that requirements were communicated; signing in proves that the person was present; taking a photo proves that the event was conducted… root-level logic of all the above is self-preservation in a low-trust environment.
When the cost of authentic expression in a system is too high, safe expressions will increase. As safe expressions multiply, real problems are noticed later and later. As real problems are noticed later and later, people can only use more forms to make up for the emptiness of reality. Everyone is consumed by it, and everyone is to a certain extent maintaining it—this is the loop of formality for formality’s sake. It does not require a single person to genuinely believe in it; it only needs to ensure that no one dares to be the first to expose it.
On construction sites, management slogans ring out deafeningly and banners fly everywhere. In reality, attention is paid only to external appearances, floating on the surface of forms. On-site safety education, safety technical disclosures, and the “one meeting and three cards” system are all falsified on paper. Expert reviews of special safety plans involving major risks are mostly conducted by experts bribed with money in advance, who raise only superficial, harmless issues. No one truly settles down to discover safety hazards and eliminate them, so quality management is naturally full of holes. Internal “three-inspection” construction procedures remain merely verbal, while supervision site-stationing, inspections, and parallel testing all degenerate into empty formalities, mostly consisting of forged materials. Almost all concrete structure engineering construction works are completed within 3 to 7 days; not a single project waits for the 28-day standard curing process to finish before proceeding to the next step. Doing so violates the objective laws of concrete strength development, causing concrete cracks that should only occur in the future to emerge prematurely, greatly compromising quality and drastically shortening the service life of structures.
The quality supervision stations that represent the government in exercising supervisory duties need only to be paid money by construction units every time they inspect. Fully aware that projects are operating under affiliated qualifications, they pretend not to know, going through the motions, inspecting the surface, reviewing those forged documents, and considering their mission accomplished. Often, they do not even visit the site, changing the process to sample submissions instead; as for whether the submitted samples come from actual site construction or are specially fabricated solely for submission, nobody cares.
The third-party testing institutions crucial to quality control are mostly bribed and bought off by construction units, conspiring with them to fabricate false test results. In a project I personally experienced, a large number of Class II bridge pile foundations and a portion of Class III pile foundations were directly falsified into Class I piles by testing agencies without any remediation… The falsification scandal reported on the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge shocked the world; if they dare to commit fraud on a project of such caliber, one can see how unbearable domestic quality management truly is!
All the aforementioned circumstances demonstrate that the so-called “Infrastructure Monster” has, from beginning to end, been saturated with bureaucracy, the falsehoods of formality for formality’s sake, and the blood and tears of the vast masses of ordinary people. What is even more terrifying is the inevitable, greater avalanche of debt and engineering quality crisis that lies ahead in the future.
To borrow a sentence from the Chinese Communist Party for irony: The good days are yet to come!
Editor: Hu Jing Proofreader: Feng Reng Translator: Ge Bing
