China administration system

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Lecture 3
Values of Chinese Public Administration

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 Values are important for public administration
 They tell us desired goals and appropriate ways to achieve them
 The tradition of governance in China
 Pre-1978 period had a focus on political values like class
struggle, ideological purification, and hierarchical control.
 Since 1978, the governing practice of CCP served the demands
of a developmental state
 The party underwent a process of depoliticization, or repoliticization.
 Development became the biggest politics
 Since the early 1990s, strategic values of CCP were crystallized
as reform, development, and stability. They were extended
directly to PA.

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1. Basic PA Values in China
 Reform
 Development
 Stability

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Reform
 Reform has been deeply incorporated into the political culture with strong
symbolic consequences.
 Since 1978, major administrative reforms were launched in 1982, 1988,
1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008.
 Reorganization, downsizing, and market-facilitation were major tasks of
these reforms.
 Announcing a major reform symbolizes legitimacy and effective
leadership.
 Reforms in PA are incremental
 Trial-and-error initiatives and policies, before being formally adopted and
fully applied, are first tried in selected local jurisdictions or issue areas.
 The general path of reform is to start with tentative policies and end up
with formal institutions.
 It is generally believed that a strong party is not just the cause of
incremental reform, but also a fundamental premise of its success.
 It is slow and its effectiveness depends on incessant changes in the long
run.

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Development
 Development became a fundamental justification of political legitimacy.
 Deng Xiaoping asserted that “development is the real trump card”,
“it does not matter whether a cat is white or black if it catches mice”.
 Development was at the beginning narrowly focused on economic
growth.
 There was a fever in local governments for a high growth rate of
GDP, which became an important, sometimes the primary, criterion
for cadre evaluation and promotion.
 PA has a focus to provide a better environment for economic growth.
 Introducing a balanced view
 Increasing conflicts between economic and other goals
 Since Hu Jingtao became CCP’s General Secretary in 2003, the
“Efficiency First, Justice Considered” principle has been gradually
substituted by a new blueprint of a “Harmonious Society” that
assigns more weight to social justice and comprehensive and
sustainable development.

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Stability
 Social stability is deemed as a necessary condition of reform and
development.
 It was announced that “stability dominates all other concerns”.
 Stability refers to at least two things
 1. Maintaining party leadership and its unchallenged authority;
 2. Avoiding and resolving social conflicts and movements.
 Corruption, polarization, and pollution have risen as major problems
impacting social stability.
 2007 Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International
 Italy, with a score of 5.2, ranked 41
 China, with a score of 3.5, ranked 72 (equal to that of Brazil, India,
and Mexico)
 Russia, with a score of 2.3, ranked 143
 Economic polarization deeps. The GINI coefficient of China is close to
0.5, according to difference sources. Almost no developed countries have
a figure above 0.4.

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2. Inputs of Modern PA Values
Democratic Values
 Democratization of China’s PA system.
 1) People’s Congress has strengthened its legislative and
supervisory functions and imposed on governments increasing
burden of legal and managerial accountability.
 The most important thing is budgeting approval power.
 2) PA system was made more transparent, accessible, and humane
to the society.
 Information disclosure, rights protection, nonintrusion rules, etc.
 3) Citizen participation in policy making and evaluation has
increased.
 Public hearings, participatory budgeting, democratic discussions,
etc.

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Managerial Values
 Managerial values highlight efficiency, economy and effectiveness,
and necessitate the building of a professionally and instrumentally
rational civil service.
 1) Introducing modern civil service
 2) Widespread use of performance measurement like the Objective
Responsibility system
 3) Active promotion of public management innovations
 E-government; One-stop shop; Competitive procurement; etc.

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Legal Values
 Traditional Chinese public administration was not a system of
rule of law, but of man, and in the ideal case, of moral man.
 The post-1978 period highlighted a gradual internalization of
modern legal standards.
 1) Protection of individual rights was improved.
 The 24th Constitutional Amendment passed in 2004 added to the
33rd Article that “the state respects and protects human rights”.
On March 16th in 2007, Property Rights Law was enacted
 2) Administrative laws prospered and the legislative focus went
beyond administrative empowerment and paid more attention to
equal rights protection.
 3) Procedural due process in public administration was
strengthened.
 Competition between values: efficiency and right protection,
flexibility and accountability, popular opinion and justice…