How does the Chinese Communist Party govern the country?

Chapter 11

In the spring of 1954, when Mao Zedong met with British Field Marshal Montgomery, he said: "I don't have much experience. If there is too much centralization, I will delegate a little; if there is too much decentralization, I will take it up." Considering the importance of the division of central and local powers, it is exploring the reasonable boundary between the two, and it also shows that it has not yet found a good way to expand local autonomy while maintaining central authority.

After the founding of New China, the first step for the central government to expand local autonomy was to abolish the regional level and reduce the management level. After 1949, the central government basically established six regions among the provinces based on the combat areas of the field armies: Northeast China, North China, Northwest China, East China, Central South China, and Southwest China, implementing a highly centralized system.Although the region does not have a corresponding legal status, it actually enjoys great power.Due to the lack of experience in ruling the country, the central government first handed over most of the affairs to the major regions to accumulate management experience. On June 1954, 6, the CCP promulgated the "Decision of the Central People's Government on the Abolition of Administrative Organizations at the Regional Level and the Merger of Several Provinces and Municipalities."The decision pointed out that the construction of the national planned economy requires further strengthening of the centralized and unified leadership of the central government.In order for the central government to directly lead the provinces and cities so that they can better understand the situation below, reduce organizational levels, increase work efficiency, and overcome bureaucracy, in order to save cadres, strengthen the needs of the central government and supply factories, mines and enterprises, and appropriately strengthen the leadership of provinces and cities , the abolition of administrative agencies at the regional level is necessary and timely.In terms of steps, it is not necessary to take the method of abolishing the six regional institutions at once, but to take the method of abolishing them one by one.For different departments, depending on their nature, they will be canceled one by one according to the principle of first easy and then difficult, and first simple and then complicated.Since then, China's management hierarchy has remained at five levels: the central government, provinces, cities, counties, and townships.

In the 20s, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made the first attempt to decentralize power.

During the "First Five-Year Plan" period (1953-1957), Chinese leaders realized that there were management problems in the highly centralized planning system and began to decentralize reforms. The State Council drafted the "Resolution of the State Council on Improving the National Administrative System (Draft)", On October 1956, 10, the resolution was promulgated and implemented.The resolution pointed out that the first step to improve the national administrative system is to first divide the administrative powers of the central government and the provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government, and appropriately expand the local administrative powers, and then gradually divide the provinces and counties, counties and townships. Administrative powers.The part of the resolution on the relationship between the central and local governments stipulates the principle of dividing administrative management, planning management, and financial management.Each province has a certain range of management power over planning, finance, enterprises, undertakings, materials and personnel.The specific division of labor is that the central government manages the overall, critical, and centralized enterprises and institutions that are related to the entire national economy, and other enterprises and institutions and related planning, financial, and personnel management are handed over to the local governments as much as possible.The State Council manages indicators that are of great national economic significance and need to be unified and balanced across the country, including the total output value of industry and agriculture, the scale of capital construction investment, etc.The provinces manage the regional balance indicators within their provinces.After the release of this reform order, most of the small and medium-sized enterprises in the light industry and heavy industry directly managed by the central government were delegated to the provincial level, which expanded the authority of the provincial government to distribute materials.

In 1958, Mao Zedong himself launched the "Great Leap Forward" movement, and decentralization was one of its main contents.The power of enterprise management was delegated to local management. At the same time, the power of planning management and the power of approval of capital construction projects were fully decentralized. The result of the overall decentralization was economic chaos and the experiment of decentralization failed.

Subsequently, the central government carried out a comprehensive reorganization of the economy, took back most of the decentralized powers, and re-implemented a highly centralized planning system. During the "Cultural Revolution" (1966-1976), the authority of the central government was greatly damaged. After 1969, China began the second large-scale decentralization experiment under the planning system, and once again implemented a national economic management system based on blocks.By the end of 1974, the localities already had considerable economic management authority and established their own relatively independent economic management systems. From 1977 to 1978, the State Council added more than 20 departments, and once again strengthened the unified leadership of railway, post and telecommunications, civil aviation and other departments.Regarding China’s decentralization, Fairbank believed: “The unified central government finally realized that it is much better to delegate many of its functions to the localities. Although orders from the central government can be transmitted to the localities with unprecedented efficiency through modern equipment, in order to truly To get good results, local initiatives should also be encouraged. The regional differences are so great that it won't work to do everything the same in a single country."

Since the reform and opening up, the central government has begun to pay attention to the previous lessons in expanding local autonomy, focusing on starting from micro-departments and giving full play to the enthusiasm of micro-units.The first option is to expand corporate autonomy. In 1978, rural reforms took the first step and achieved success. People began to realize that in order to solve the problem fundamentally, the division of power should not go around in circles, and power should be delegated to micro production units. As Deng Xiaoping said in 1978, the current The most urgent task is to expand corporate autonomy.The Communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China also pointed out the serious flaw of over-centralization of economic management power. Beginning in 1980, the central government decided to implement the economic responsibility system on a trial basis in some state-owned enterprises, and it was promoted nationwide in 1981. From 1983 to 1984, the reform of profit-to-tax reform was carried out nationwide, and then the reform of the contract system was carried out. In 1991, the joint-stock system was tried out, and after 1994, the construction of a modern enterprise system began to be implemented in enterprises.With the deepening of the reform, more and more authority of the government to manage enterprises has been delegated to enterprises, and the autonomy of enterprises has gradually expanded.However, during the reform, small state-owned enterprises were auctioned off one after another in some places, a large number of employees of state-owned enterprises were laid off, and a large number of state-owned assets were lost.In order to promote the development of state-owned enterprises, while delegating power, the central government has also increased the management and supervision of state-owned enterprises.The appointment of the chairman and general manager of large state-owned enterprises is in the hands of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. By controlling the distribution of power and resources, the central government has realized the control of large enterprises.The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission was established at the central level, whose main task is to supervise and manage key state-owned enterprises.

At present, it manages more than 100 enterprises, involving coal, petroleum, communication and other industries related to the lifeline of the national economy.

Of course, some problems also appeared in the process of delegating power to local governments.For example, in the early 20s, decentralization partly led to a financial strain on the central government, which made it difficult to implement the orders of the central government, and the authority of the central government declined.In order to strengthen the authority of the central government and take back part of the delegated power, the central government decided to adjust the fiscal and taxation system and establish a system of national taxation bureaus and local taxation bureaus throughout the country.This system design, known as the tax-sharing system, has been resisted by some local governments, who are unwilling to give up high-quality tax sources to the central government.For this reason, Premier Zhu Ji of the State Council personally went to the provinces where the "big taxpayers" concentrated to do work and negotiate conditions. After more than a year of difficult games, the reform of the tax sharing system started in 90.But since then, with the upward concentration of financial power, there has been a phenomenon that "the central government's finances are doing well, the provincial finances are doing well, the prefectural and municipal finances are doing well, and the county and township finances are not doing well."

On the political level, the central government has also tried to expand local power. In 1979, four special economic zones were established in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Xiamen, and Shantou. The economic policies and management authority of these special zones are far looser and more liberal than those of other cities.Article 1983 of the Constitution stipulates: "The division of functions and powers between the central and local state agencies shall follow the principle of giving full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of the local governments under the unified leadership of the central government." Since 14, the state has successively approved 1984 cities to implement the plan Separately, it is equivalent to the provincial planning unit, and the account is listed separately in the national plan, directly included in the national plan, and some of these cities are given provincial economic management authority. In 14, it decided to open 1988 coastal port cities. In 1994, it decided to establish a special economic zone on Hainan Island. Later, in 16, it added [-] sub-provincial cities, expanding the management authority of these places.

This series of actions to expand power has mobilized the enthusiasm of local governments for development.In some places, the initiative of "expanding power and strengthening counties" is also being explored.Change those counties with strong economic strength and great contributions to the local area to county-level cities, and upgrade the rank of county party secretary from chief to deputy.For such counties, prefecture-level city-level authorities are given in terms of financial approval authority.This not only expands the development space of the county economy, but also creates a huge incentive for county-level units.

Since the reform and opening up, local government reforms have been carried out many times.In the process of reforming local institutions, the central administrative examination and approval system has been greatly reduced, and local powers have been correspondingly expanded.

In 2008, the fifth round of reform of local government institutions was launched. In 2009, the central government specially issued the "Opinions on the Reform of Local Government Institutions", allowing provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) to set up institutions according to local conditions and fully consider the characteristics of local government functions, instead of "one size fits all".Some experts believe that this is the greatest autonomy given to local governments in previous reforms of local government institutions.Beijing officially launched a new round of government institutional reform in late February 2009, and the adjustment and optimization involved 2 departments.Discussion and coordination institutions and temporary institutions have also been greatly streamlined and standardized. The municipal government has reduced the number of discussion and coordination institutions and temporary institutions by 19, with a reduction ratio of 27%.After the reform in Guangdong, a developed region, 32.5 working departments were established, including 42 provincial government offices and constituent departments, 24 directly affiliated special institution, 1 directly affiliated institutions, and 17 departmental management institutions (specifically at the deputy department level). In 6, Guangdong implemented a real-name system for organization establishment throughout the province.

After the reform, more than 80 institutions above the deputy department level have been reduced in all provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in China.

It should be pointed out that the expansion of local autonomy cannot simply be understood as the expansion of the power of local governments and the expansion of local autonomy. In a fundamental sense, it is the expansion of the democratic rights of the people, including the right to vote, to be elected, to supervise, and to recall.This is the first and foremost meaning of local autonomy.Second, since China implements the system of people's congresses, "the organs through which the people exercise state power are the National People's Congress and local people's congresses at various levels."Expanding local autonomy also includes expanding the powers of local people's congresses at various levels and their standing committees.Third, on the basis and premise of the previous two items, the authority of local governments in local administrative management shall be expanded so that they can manage local administrative affairs independently within the scope of the law.If the expansion of local autonomy is simply equated with the expansion of local government power, it may lead to the inversion of the local power organs and local administrative organs, and even make the power devolved to the local level deviate from the track of social public interests.Take the National People's Congress as an example. For a period of time after the reform and opening up, only the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee had legislative power, and local people's congresses did not. The Legislative Law passed in 2000 stipulates that the people's congresses and their standing committees of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government may, according to the specific conditions and actual needs of their respective administrative regions, formulate local laws and regulations on the premise that they do not conflict with the Constitution, laws, and administrative regulations. regulations.This actually gives local legislative authority.Some areas have carried out reforms to the people's congress system, fully highlighting the status of the people's congress as the highest organ of state power, and strengthening the supervision, appointment and dismissal powers of the people's congress.Some regions require that some major decisions must be approved by the National People's Congress before they can be implemented.The misconception that the NPC is viewed as a "voting machine" is slowly disappearing.

As a result of several government institutional reforms, local autonomy has shown a growing trend.Local legislative power has been limitedly recognized, local taxation and central taxation have been separated to a certain extent, dual management of land resources has been implemented, and the functions of local people's congresses have been improved.The positive effect of expanding the power of local governments is to enhance the autonomy of local governments and promote local governments to devote more energy to local economic and social development.However, some local governments vigorously promote the "three-light policy", that is, "go quickly when you see a green light, rush to go when you see a yellow light, and walk around when you see a red light", in order to avoid friction with the central policy.

Although the local impulse to expand local autonomy has always existed, and despite the highly centralized nature of China's political system, in practice central power is decentralized.Li Kanru, a well-known American expert on China, believes that China's political system can be regarded as a "decentralized totalitarian" political system.Under this decentralized centralization, local governments enjoy certain autonomy.Regrettably, the decentralization of power between the central and local governments has not yet broken out of the vicious circle of "death when it is collected, and chaos when it is released."How to better realize the division of power between the central and local governments is still a major issue that needs to be further studied in national governance.

(End of this chapter)