Are State employees a heavy burden on taxpayers? Not if they do the job

THE MINISTRY OF Human Resources and Social Security recently announced that China had 7.16 million civil servants at the end of 2015. That number looks small compared to the huge population, but China has many other State-sponsored employees that are not civil servants but who are still paid for by taxpayers, says Beijing News:

There have long been claims that there are too many State employees in China, which place a heavy economic burden on taxpayers. The ministry has done a good deed by publishing the number of civil servants, which shows they account for a not-so-high percentage of the whole population.

However, the "civil servants" here mean those enlisted in government departments. There are many government-sponsored staff in China who are not considered civil servants but are still paid using taxpayers' money.