China Advertises Globally for “National Champion” CEOs

The Chinese government recently ran an enormous help-wanted advertisement

seeking professional managers for some of its biggest state-controlled companies,

a novel but not unprecedented move that apparently reflected unhappiness with the companies’ current performance.

The advertisement, two broadsheet-newspaper pages of small type,

sought applicants for 20 senior management jobs

in industries like nuclear power, auto manufacturing and textiles.

The Chinese government recently ran an enormous help-wanted advertisement

seeking professional managers for some of its biggest state-controlled companies,

a novel but not unprecedented move that apparently reflected unhappiness with the companies’ current performance.

The advertisement, two broadsheet-newspaper pages of small type,

sought applicants for 20 senior management jobs

in industries like nuclear power, auto manufacturing and textiles.

While some of the positions were restricted to Chinese citizens,

many of the posts were open to foreign applicants,

and several required proficiency in languages like English and French.

The advertisements were placed by the Chinese Communist Party’s central organization department and the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission,

the high-level government body that oversees the operations of China’s 129 biggest state-controlled corporations.

They appeared in major Chinese and English-language newspapers,

including the Communist Party newspaper, The People’s Daily, and on most major Internet portals.

Most of the 129 companies, nicknamed the national champions, dominate industries like mining, power generation and transportation,

which are considered by the central government to be vital to China’s national security.

But some, including most state-owned auto manufacturers, have struggled to gain traction against nimbler private competitors,

and the assets commission has warned lately that it plans to merge its weakest companies into its more successful companies.

State-owned companies that monopolize their industries, like those in tobacco, telecommunications and oil production, are quite profitable.

But the profitability of state companies in competitive industries is generally much poorer than the average, according to a World Bank analysis this year.

The advertisement sought five general managers — roughly the same as a chief executive officer — for

• the Dongfeng Motor Corporation,

• the China State Construction Engineering Corporation,

• China Travel Service (Hong Kong),

• the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation and the

• Chinatex Corporation, a textile manufacturer.

More junior executives were being sought for posts at mining, communications, construction, nuclear power and shipping companies, among others.

The solicitation quickly drew hundreds of comments on Internet chat boards, some less than complimentary.

On one major Web site, Sohu.com, the 800 comments were briefly led by one anonymous posting

that referred to the state companies’ longstanding practice of giving jobs to relatives of well-placed party and government officials.

“They are doing this because the sons and daughters of the leaders are now coming back from their overseas studies,” that person wrote.

Censors quickly deleted the comment, according to this report in the New York Times.