公车标识化(gōngchē biāoshíhuà): Making government cars identifiable

Since March 1, Jiangsu provincial Party and government agencies have started painting their cars with special designs to make them easily identifiable. All such cars are expected to bear the mark by the end of this month.

According to the plan, all the automobiles used by Party and government agencies will be painted "For official use only" and the hotline number "12345". If people see such cars being used for private purposes, they can call the number or use other channels such as WeChat and smartphone apps to report it.

Jiangsu's move echoes the call of the central government, which in a 2015 guideline on reforming the use of government vehicles required local governments to mark their cars with identifiable designs.

By doing so, the public can easily identify which cars are government ones and report those being misused for private purposes.

Jiangsu is not the first province to do so. Yizhang county in Central China's Hunan province previously started painting "For official use only" together with a hotline number on its government cars.

Within four months, the Yizhang government found its financial spending on government cars had dropped by roughly 25 percent. Even its deputy mayor rode a motorcycle to office instead of taking the government car. More cities and provinces are encouraged to follow suit so as to help root out corruption.