The Provincial Government Institutional Reform in Mainland China after the 15th NCCPC：A Case Study of Jiangsu Province
Date Issued
2009
Date
2009
Author(s)
Sung, Ji-Jun
Abstract
The provincial government institutional reform in Mainland China – a case study of Jiangsu province bstract It has been thirty years since the policy of reform and opening-up initiated in the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee in 1978. The Mainland China is facing a rapid political and economic transformation of society. At the same time, the central and local government institutional reforms are also evolving with the constantly-changing political and economic contexts. Local governments at all levels tackle reform-related issues cautiously for fear that they might fall into an abyss if the reform should fail. Therefore, how to deal with the reform is tremendously grave for the local government. Jiangsu, where the government reform was first carried out, is an advanced province in Mainland China regarded as a rising power in the world. In this paper, Jiangsu Province was used as the target sample, for its key position in economic development and reform of local government in Mainland China. I have been in the field of the Mainland China studies since I worked in the graduate school. I take interest in the economic transition, social development in Mainland China after its opening-up reform, especially in the economic system and administrative system, as well as the development of interaction between central and local relationship. The foci of this paper are on the institutional reforms from the central government to the local government, especially the provincial government institutional reform, after the 15th National Congress of Communist Party of China in 1997. Most of the scholars only paid attention to the institutional reform of the State Council, but they ignored the local government and its operation in the reform process. In fact, local governments face the grass-roots directly, and its impact on the population is far-reaching, because the local governments need to connect with both the central government and the grass-roots. Therefore, the study of the reform of provincial-level institutional reform is the key of the government reform from an overall perspective. Compared with the central government, the scope of the institutional reform at the local government level is more comprehensive, Therefore, to use the provincial-level institutional reform as the unit of analysis has its own significance. First, this article summarized the theory of the government institutions reform carried out in provincial government reform in Mainland China and East and West government. Then the institutional reform in Mainland China after the 15th NCCPC was examined, and we used the institutional reform in Jiangsu province as the object of empirical study. The research results were employed to examine the relationship between central and local governments under the socialist market economic system. This paper reviews the government reforms since the People’s Republic of China was founded. The most major government reform was carried out in 1998. In this reform, the reform target of separation of government from enterprises, streamlining of agencies personnel and transformation of the functions of government organs was established, and transformation of the functions of government institutions is the key point. In this paper, the background, content and effects of institutional reform of the State Council and provincial government were analyzed, and then through the study of institutional reform in Jiangsu province, problems generated in the process of reform and the way to solve them could be discussed. In this paper, we found that in the beginning of the Mainland China government established, the government reform was focused on the State Council, rather provincial-level local government. Although the reform of provincial government was mentioned in 1993, the result was not wonderful. In the government reform in 1998, the central government increased the intensity of reform to the provincial-level government agencies, specifically constituted guidance to lead the reform of local government. During the process of government reform, Local government take the transformation of the functions of government organs as the main target, and the reform objectives were basically came true at last. We studied the institutional reform in Jiangsu province, and deeply studied the reform process in southern Jiangsu and northern Jiangsu area, then we found that the success of southern Jiangsu model can be attribute to the changing functions of local government, and ensure to separate the enterprise from the conduct of public affairs, separate the Government from the market. However, the northern Jiangsu area is still standing in a low economic level due to historical, geographical, cultural and other factors, and required the Government to strengthen macro-control, to mobilize forces to bring the entire Jiangsu economic to grow quickly. Moreover, this article compared Jiangsu provincial government institutional reform with Taiwan province reform in the same period, which was called "downsizing province" in our country in chapter V. And we found that in our country, the government were promoting the the provincial government organization "virtual class " in this period, and has its own special political and social necessary background. With the same reason, the institutional reform of Jiangsu Province is response to the socialist market economic system development, strengthen macro-control functions of the provincial government in order to respond to its own reform demand. The two different area used different reform policy because of their unique local factors: Our country promote to the functions of the government "virtual class" and Jiangsu promote to "strengthen" macro-control functions of the government. This study found that although institutional reform in 1998 had achieved great results, the administrative system, government agencies also need to further deepen the reform. Therefore, this paper studied the new trend of government institutions reform after the 15th NCCPC, including the reform in 2003 to strengthen the regulatory system and reform in 2008 after 17th NCCPC to carry out the Reform of Super-Ministry System. Overall, in the early stage of China''s institutional reform, the theory is inadequate, and too subjective, too arbitrary, depend on the leaders of their own thinking. The pre-reform of local government bodies are not able to fully embody the characteristics of themselves. Compared with the Western public structural reform, China''s institutional reform is also instructive, because the root of the reform are reform the government structural from "planned economy" to a "market economy", the drive for reform comes from the " structural reform", " structural transformation", the root are in the " transformation of the functions of government organs ", which are different from the reform basic of Western countries.
Subjects
provincial institutional reform
government structural reform
transformation of the functions of government organs
Type
thesis
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