This study analyses the intricate relationship between sanction-based accountability and bureaucratic shirking. Drawing on an original survey conducted among Chinese civil servants, it addresses the question of whether sanction-based accountability can effectively regulate the conduct of public officials and provide a cure for bureaucratic shirking. The study identifies the characteristics of shirking behaviour in the Chinese bureaucracy and distinguishes three major patterns: evading responsibility, shifting responsibility and reframing responsibility. The findings indicate that sanction-based accountability may contain some obvious and notorious slacking types of behaviour, such as stalling and inaction, but government officials may distort or reframe their responsibilities to cope with accountability pressure. Empirical evidence suggests that owing to some “strategic” adjustments in bureaucratic behaviour, flagrant shirking is replaced by more subtle ways of blame avoidance, such as playing it safe or fabricating performance information. Sanction-based accountability therefore does not offer a panacea for bureaucratic shirking.