Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Politics of River Chiefs Chien 2018-1
Politics of River Chiefs Chien 2018-1
Political Geography
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: It is generally agreed that traditional territorial-fixed systems face transboundary difficulties that char-
Received 2 December 2016 acterize a territorial mismatch between flowing materials and political boundaries. Hierarchization, a
Received in revised form process of forming a hierarchy to generate transboundary power to transcend the territorial mismatch, is
23 September 2017
commonly founded in terms of transboundary river governance. For example, the existing literature
Accepted 6 October 2017
discusses the hierarchization of river governance in either the establishment of a new governmental
Available online 14 October 2017
agency or creation of an ad hoc committee. However, the river leader policy introduced nationwide in
China in 2016 is distinct from these two approaches. River leadership is assigned to certain prefecture-
Keywords:
River leader
level cadres, whose career advancement depends on achieving specific goals related to the quality of
Transboundary governance rivers for which they are made accountable. River leaders' transboundary powers to coordinate their
Hierarchization subordinate officials and resources are not a function of their government positions but rather their cadre
Party-state rank hierarchy within China's Leninist-style authoritarian party-state mechanism. We call this process
Chinese Communist Party ‘hierarchization through partification’. With an empirical focus on the river leader policy of Dian Lake in
Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, we present a detailed discussion of hierarchization through par-
tification in China, including its characteristics, advantages and limitations. This study depends on
secondary data like official documents and news reports, along with first-hand site visits on river
landscapes and field interviews with officials and citizens. This paper's core contributions are to
enrich the theoretical discussion of different types of hierarchization that deal with transboundary
affairs and to improve understanding how the authoritarian states like China initiate their own
forms of river governance that are not properly examined by the existing transboundary governance
literature.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction governance differ in their details (Toset, Gleditsch, & Hegre, 2000),
the most common two hierarchization strategies are (1) to estab-
Developing effective governance of transboundary resources is a lish an ad hoc committee, or (2) to authorize a new governmental
significant challenge (Blatter, 2004; Brenner, 1999b; Elden, 2005). bureau. Examples include the International Commission for the
Traditional territory-fixed systems are poorly adapted to respond to Protection of the Rhine in Europe (Huisman, De Jong, & Wieriks,
the externalities of fluid entities that span multiple administrative 2000), and the Connecticut River Joint Commission (Vogel, 2015)
boundaries, mainly due to a lack of adequate transboundary power and the Tennessee Valley Authority (Selznick, 1949) in the US.
to coordinate different inter-territorial authorities and to transcend In China, governing rivers has been a crucial task since ancient
territorial mismatches between flowing materials and political times (Wittfogel, 1957). As in many other countries, the current
boundaries. The existing literature suggests different strategies to Chinese government has widely adopted the strategy of establish-
generate a proper hierarchy among related stakeholders to improve ing ad hoc committees and governmental agencies, such as the
inter-territorial integration and coordination. We call this process Yellow River Water Resource Commission, the Huai River Water
‘hierarchization’. While various implementations of river basin Resource Commission and Guangdong's Rivers Management
Commission (Yi & Ma, 2009). In addition, on 15th October 2016, a
new national policy called ‘one river one leader (Ch. he zhang)’ was
* Corresponding author. announced by the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively
E-mail address: schien@ntu.edu.tw (S.-S. Chien).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.10.001
0962-6298/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
S.-S. Chien, D.-L. Hong / Political Geography 62 (2018) 58e67 59
relatively independent territorial government. The committee Commissar of the Garrison District. The members of the local CCP
mainly serves an advisory role and has no regulatory power. But its standing committee, composing the so-called group leadership (Ch.
joint openness to public involvement still plays a role in balancing lingdao banzi), collectively have final say over personnel manage-
power among participating local governments at different political ment in the entire province. Therefore these CCP standing com-
scales and has actually prevented some large-scale development mittee members enjoy higher rank within the party than other vice
projects from moving forward (Vogel, 2015). Second, it must be governors and most directors of departments in the provincial
noted that hierarchical relations and uneven influence could exist government. The same principle also applies to the local standing
among members in the ad hoc committee. The political processes in committee at the prefecture-level to its counterpart government,
generating power inequality can be understood as an informal hi- and further down to the county, town and township levels.
erarchization. Given that such informal hierarchization is based on Second, given that the party controls the cadres (Ch. dang guan
interactive relationship between members rather than on an gangbu), local leaders are not elected democratically but rather are
institutionalized and organizational structure, this kind of hierar- assigned from upper-level party units. Cadre selection is the most
chization is relatively more arbitrary and dynamic, and is imple- crucial mechanism to maintain CCP authoritarian governance.
mented on a case by case basis. Promotion or demotion of cadres operates through a unique
personnel management system called the nomenklatura (Ch. bian
zhi), which arranges all party, governmental, military and enter-
2.3. River leader: hierarchization through partification
prise posts in a ranked hierarchy (Brodsgaard, 2001; Heilmann &
Kirchberger, 2000). All posts can be categorized in five major
China's river leader policy creates a distinct form of hierarchi-
ranks: (1) national level (Ch. guojia ji), (2) provincial/ministry level
zation. By assigning higher-ranking leading party cadres re-
(Ch. sheng-bu ji), (3) prefecture/department level (Ch. di-ting ji), (4)
sponsibility for mainstream rivers, China's river leader policy
county/division level (Ch xian-chu ji), and (5) township/section
mobilizes administrative resources among various territories
level (Ch. xiang-ke ji) (Lieberthal & Oksenberg, 1988; Huang, 2002;
within a transboundary river basin (Ministry of Environmental
Chan, 2004; Chien, 2013). There is a power and cadre hierarchy
Protection of the People's Republic of China, 2009). Thus, it cre-
within the CCP, meaning that higher-ranked cadres hold more
ates a new hierarchical structure to command officials in each
organizational authority and power than their lower-ranked
subordinate territorial administrative, not by establishing a new
counterparts. For example, members of the PSC are listed at the
authority in the bureaucratic system but through an existing
national level and members of the politburo are listed at the vice-
personnel hierarchy under the Chinese Communist Party. We call
national-level.3 Such posts are organizationally more powerful
this approach hierarchization through partification, referring a
than most ministers and provincial governors who occupy the
political process in which Leninist-style authoritarian party dictates
provincial/ministerial rank (Zheng, 2010).
the operations of civil servants and government agencies (Phong &
Third, under the nomenklatura system, local leaders are selected
Beresford, 1998) (see Fig. 1).2 The hierarchy upon which the river
through a performance-oriented cadre evaluation system (Edin,
leader policy relies is consistent with the CCP's authoritarian party-
2003; Zhou, 2008). At the start of the year, upper-level of CCP
state framework, in which power and accountability are linked
units assign key performance targets to their subordinates. Perfor-
within a hierarchical organization of party cadres. Its operations
mance is evaluated at the end of each year and these evaluations
can be further explained in three dimensions.
play a critical role in career advancement, giving upper-level cadres
First, communist China operates on the Leninist concept of
an effective mechanism for adjusting the behavior of lower-level
‘party leading the government’, which legitimizes the party's au-
cadres (Edin, 2003; Li & Zhou, 2005). This has been successfully
thority to lead (Ch. yi dang ling zheng). Thus, the party line exercises
used to steer local government action over time, moving the
absolute authority over all government administrations and orga-
emphasis from economic development in the 1990s (Chien, 2007) to
nizations (Wright, 2016; Zheng, 2010). At the central level, the
slowing the rate of farmland loss after the late 2000s (Chien, 2015).
Politburo's Standing Committee of CCP (Ch. zhongyang zhengzhiju)
The case of river leader policy suggests that China initiates the
convenes between 15 and 25 senior cadres in regular meetings to
hierarchization of transboundary governance through adopting
lead the state. Power within the Politburo is further centralized in
and extending the existing party-rank structure, rather than by
the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), composed of five to nine
authorizing a new governmental agency. Higher-ranked cadres are
members (seven for the current PSC starting from 2012). Table 1
correspondingly assigned significant performance requirements for
clearly shows that some of these cadres simultaneously hold po-
river governance. In prefecture-level cities, the most powerful
sitions within the government but some only work within the party
cadres are the members of the local CCP standing committee who
organization. However, the latter are more powerful than all min-
rank at the prefecture level. Though the purviews of some officials
isters and other governmental officials in the State Council because
originally had nothing to do with governmental affairs, linking their
of their membership of PSC, thus supporting the principle of ‘party
career advancement to river improvement gives them a serious
leading the government’.
incentive to coordinate territorial administrations and resources to
Similarly, at each administrative level, the local CCP standing
address the quality of rivers that flow through the territory of their
committee holds the highest authority over local governments. For
subordinate county-level cadres.
example, members of the local CCP standing committee at the
provincial-level normally includes the party secretary, governor
(co-posted as first vice party secretary), first deputy governor, chief 2.4. Hierarchization through partification: advantages and
of the United Front Work Committee, chief of Secretary of the limitations
Commission for Discipline Inspection, chief of the Propaganda
Department, chief of Organizational Department and Political The Chinese river leader policy adopts a distinct hierarchization
2 3
However, we notice that scholars use the term partification differently. For Cadres at the vice-national level are those politically ranked below the national
example, in the case of the Nazi Party (1919e1945), Orlow (2008) uses the term to level but above the provincial/ministry level. A similar principle also applies to the
refer the imposition or applicability of a set of policy goals derived from the party's cadres at the vice -provincial/ministry-level, the vice-prefecture/department-level,
values or ideological base to the conduct of societal relations. the vice-county/division-level, and the vice-township/section-level.
S.-S. Chien, D.-L. Hong / Political Geography 62 (2018) 58e67
Fig. 1. Two different organizational forms of hierarchization.
Note: the dotted line in the case of the ad hoc committee indicates the hierarchization power relationship among members is informal behind interactive negotiation, in comparison with the solid line in the case of the state bu-
reaucracy and party nomenclature systems where the hierarchical power relationships between upper-level officials and cadres and their subordinates are formal and official.
Source: Compiled by authors
61
62 S.-S. Chien, D.-L. Hong / Political Geography 62 (2018) 58e67
Table 1
China's party-state positions in the Politburo's Standing Committee.
1 C General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee C President of the People's Republic of China (PRC)
C Chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission C Chairman of the PRC Central Military Commission
2 C Party Secretary of the State Council of the People's Republic of China C Premier of the State Council of the PRC
3 C Party Secretary of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress C Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
4 C Party Secretary of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political C Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference Consultative Conference
5 C Top-ranked Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the CCP NONE
C President of the CCP Central Party School
6 C Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection NONE
7 C Deputy Party Secretary of the State Council of the People's Republic of China C First Vice Premier of the State Council of the PRC
8 C Chairman of the Central Guidance Commission for Building Spiritual Civilization NONE
9 C Secretary of the Central Political and Legislative Committee NONE
Note: The number of members of Politburo's Standing Committee of CCP has varied from five (1982e1992) to seven (1992e2002 and 2012- present) to nine (2002e2007). For
this study we assume nine members, which corresponds better to the situation of local standing CCP committees.
Source: Compiled by authors
strategy which is profoundly embedded in its authoritarian party- tends to result in the forced displacement of citizens, land devel-
state regime. Although political tensions could exist in all opment speculation, and corruption in the implementation of
different types of hierarchization, political tension might be more spatial or environmental policies.
conspicuous in hierarchization through re-bureaucratization and
informal hierarchization behind interactive negotiation. This is 3. River leaders in China
because both more or less rely inter-territorial compromises and/or
legislative processes, which entails considerable political conten- 3.1. Difficulty in promoting local environmental management in
tion. However, political tension is muted in the hierarchization China
produced by the river leader policy due to the relatively unques-
tioned top-down authority exercised within the CCP's cadre- In recent years, China's central government has focused more on
ranking structure. environmental issues, partly as a result of local dissatisfaction over
One advantage of hierarchization through partification lies in its worsening ecological degradation and partly in response to inter-
use of existing hierarchical structures and ranking logic within the national concerns over China's status as the world's largest emitter
party system. Without any necessary bureaucratic reform and of CO2. This shift of focus is currently being pushed down through
legislation, higher-rank cadres can be motivated to mobilize lower- provincial and local governments.
ranking officials to implement desired policies within the party- For example, to prevent further farmland loss, the central gov-
state mechanism (Chien, 2010). In addition, without the need for ernment in 2005 set a quota for the nationwide preservation of 1.8
negotiation and compromises, it suggests the possibility of fast billion mu of farmland.4 This quota was broken down by province,
policy outcomes on transboundary affairs, consistent with other and then further by cities and counties, with individual adminis-
studies on authoritarian environmentalism (Gilley, 2012). trators at each level being assigned a specific performance target.
However, hierarchization through partification presents some While farmland is still vulnerable to misappropriation, the rate at
clear shortcomings. First, cadre motivation relies on performance which farmland is being lost has slowed considerably due to this
evaluations, which must be easily quantifiable for comparison. policy shift (Chien, 2015). However river management differs from
Therefore, the river leader policy under the partified hierarchi- farmland affairs, given that farmland is physically fixed in a
zation inevitably is restricted to a very small number of perfor- particular jurisdiction while rivers flow across many administrative
mance indicators. For example, the river leader policy ends up in boundaries (Lo & Tang, 1994). This transboundary characteristic
mainly focusing on pollution control, which is frequently the most makes it difficult to effectively implement traditional territory-
urgent dimension and is also the easiest item to quantify. However, fixed governance methods.
sustainable river governance consists of complex and intertwined
social, cultural, and environmental issues including fishing, water
3.2. River leader in Kunming, China
transport, flood control, citizen access to riverfronts, pollution
management and so on.
The river leader policy was first introduced in Wuxi city (Jiangsu
Second, the implementation of the hierarchization through
province) in 2007 to address severe pollution in Tai Lake (Chien,
partification is highly dependent on the task-assigned cadres, and
2016, p. p1; Dai, 2015). The policy was later implemented in
differences in approach and personality between successive ad-
Henan, Liaoning and Yunnan (2008), Guizhou and Hubei (2009),
ministrators may disrupt continuity in policy implementation. In
Anhui, Zhejiang and Tianjin (2013). The central government
addition, local leaders in China are frequently rotated, with tenure
adopted it as a national policy in the end of 2016. The process from
averaging only two to three years (Chen, Luo, She, & Ying, 2016;
local experimentations to national policy indicates that the central
Eaton & Kostka, 2014). Thus, cadres must establish a basis for
government in Beijing endorsed the local solution of applying party
performance evaluation within one or two years, incentivizing local
hierarchy mechanisms to deal with inter-territorial difficulties in
leaders to pursue potentially shortsighted approaches to meet their
the category of environmental governance (Heilmann, 2008). To
assigned milestones.
investigate the detailed mechanisms and effectiveness of the river
Finally, the partified hierarchization is based on the CCP's party-
leader policy, this paper focuses on the example of Dian Lake in
state rank hierarchy which is characteristically authoritarian and
top-down. China still heavily restricts the media and civil society.
Limited social participation together with aggressive local leaders 4
mu is a Chinese unit for measuring areas. 1 ha equals to 15 mu.
S.-S. Chien, D.-L. Hong / Political Geography 62 (2018) 58e67 63
prefecture-level Kunming City, the capital of Yunnan Province. “5 þ 2” (meaning working five days for weekday and two days for
Covering 300 square km, Dian Lake is the sixth largest lake in China. weekend), and “716” (meaning working seven days a week and 16 h
It features few natural outlets and has a long natural water ex- a day).
change period of four years (SEE Fig. 2). A local catchphrase reflects Qiu's comprehension of how the
This slow refresh rate, combined with intensive local animal strategy of hierarchization through partification could be used to
husbandry and industrial development, has resulted severe pollu- implement a workable solution to deal with Dian Lake basin
tion, with particularly high levels of phosphate and eutrophication. pollution: “Governing good lakes only after improving water
Beginning in the 1980s, control measures were initially imple- quality (Ch. zhihu xian zhishui), improving water quality greater
mented first with the establishment of the Dian Lake Protection only after knowing how to manage rivers (Ch. zhishui xian zhihe),
Commission in 1989 and then the Dian Lake Authority in 2002. managing rivers better only after sorting out pollution (Ch. zhihe
However, implementation results were unsatisfactory in the case of xian zhiwu), sorting out pollution only after commanding civil
Dian Lake (See Fig. 3) and other instances in China for two reasons. servants well (Ch. zhiwu xian zhiren), commanding civil servants
First, local leaders prioritized revenue-oriented economic initia- only after giving right incentives to motivate cadres (Ch. zhiren xian
tives. Therefore, despite an increasing awareness of environmental zhiguan).” In the Leninist's one-party-state authoritarian system,
concerns, local cadres are strongly incentivized to encourage eco- how to effectively motivate cadres is the key to managing public
nomic development (Gilley, 2012; Eaton & Kostka, 2014; Mertha, affairs, including river issues.
2005; Wang et. al, 2015). In addition, the Ministry of Commerce Qiu assigned members of the Kunming CCP standing committee
has considerably greater influence than the Ministry of Environ- to take responsibility for the most polluted mainstreams flowing
mental Protection (Ran, 2013).5 into Dian Lake (SEE Table 2). These mainstreams run across various
River leader policy was first experimented in Kunming in 2008 county-level administrations, creating considerable transboundary
by QIU He, who served in Jiangsu for more than two decades before challenges. Each mainstream may be fed by various tributaries, and
being transferred to Kunming for a promotion to party secretary of a mainstream may be divided into many subsections. Tributaries
Kunming in 2007. Qiu was famous for pushing subordinate cadres and subsections measure up to a few dozen kilometers long, and
to carry out their assigned goals by whatever means, or so-called are likely to be contained within a single county-level adminis-
the Qiuhe model (Tsai, 2011).6 When Qiu was in Suqian in Jiangsu tration. Thus the chief of that county-level administration is
in the early 2000s, economic development was highly prioritized, assigned as the leader for that tributary or subsection (Ch. he duan
and Qiu's administration even assigned performance quotas to zhang). According to the CCP's nomenclature system, task-assigned
elementary school teachers to attract investment projects. Several prefecture-level and vice-prefecture-level cadres are organiza-
local slogans in Kunming illustrate Qiu's approach: “White plus tionally more powerful than their county-level counterparts.
black” (Ch. bai jia hei, meaning working daytime and nighttime), Qiu took direct responsibility for the Panlong River, the most
important and complex inflow for Dian Lake. River protection ac-
counts for about 15% of the total evaluation score,7 with evaluation
5
items including water quality, guarantees for sorting out muddy
Green non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China did play a role in the
early 2000s. For example, the size of the Nu river dam project was reduced mainly
because the state responded to civic pressure. However, the political space of green
7
NGOs was constrained again with the beginning of the Xi administration. In some cities like Zhoukuo in Henan and Hefei in Hubei, pollution control is a
6
QIU's aggressiveness in making better economic performances assigned from veto indicator for cadre performance evaluation, creating huge pressure and
the top is even called as ‘Qiu He model (Ch. moshi) (See Tsai, 2011); and interview motivation for river leaders to do whatever they can to clean up river pollution. See
2008 August (in Jiangsu), 2013 July and 2015 January (in Yunan). Chien (2016).
64 S.-S. Chien, D.-L. Hong / Political Geography 62 (2018) 58e67
Table 2
Kunming's river leaders and supervised local administrative territories.
River and river leader Party position(s) of the river leader Local territories supervised by river leader
Panlong river - Secretary of Standing Committee (SC) of Kunming CCP Wuhua District
(Qiu, He) - Member of CCP Yunnan Provincial Committee Panlong District
Guandu District
Xishan District
National tourist District
Baoxiang river - Secretary of SC of Kunming CCP Guandu District
(Zhang, Zulin) Development District
Xiba river - Member of SC of Kunming CCP Wuhua District
(Huang, Yunpo) - Vice Major of Kunming Xishan District
Wulong river - Member of SC of Kunming CCP Xishan District
(Fang, Xingguo) - Political commissar of Garrison
Chuanfang river - Member of SC of Kunming CCP Xishan District
(Jin, Zhiwei) - Head of United Front Work Department of CCP Wuhua District
Chai river - Member of SC of Kunming CCP Jinning County
(Li, Wenrong)
Maliao river - Member of SC of Kunming CCP Development District
(Ying, Yongsheng) - Secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection of CCP Chenggong County
Guandu District
Xiaba river - Member of SC of Kunming CCP Guandu District
(Liu, Guangxi)
Wangjiadui river - Member of SC of Kunming CCP Xishan District
(Li, Yifei) - Head of Publicity Department of CCP
Tanglang river - Member of SC of Kunming CCP Xishan District
(Guo, Hongpo) - Head of Organization Department of CCP Anning City
Source: Adapted from the “2010 Regulations for Management and Assessment of River Leader Assistants in Kunming”
water (Ch. bao zhi zang), for regulating disorder behaviors in facilities, emission control infrastructure, and upgrading of agri-
making pollution (Ch. bao zhi luan), and for maintaining scenic river cultural and animal husbandry industries and manufacturing suc-
vistas (Ch. bao lu hua). River protection performance is evaluated in cessfully reduced total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and
terms of pollution control and land use activities on adjacent riv- ammoniac nitrogen (NH3-N) levels (See Fig. 3 above). However,
erbanks. Water pollution assessment facilities still can be installed, these dramatic improvements were not sustained following the
using the starting and end assessment points to clarify account- end of Qiu's tenure.
ability to corresponding leaders for any tributary or subsection (See At least three social and political externalities need to be
Fig. 2 above). Financial bonuses are provided as incentives for addressed alongside this short-term success. First, urgent pollution
success, but those who failed to accomplish their performance control and management is easily quantifiable through scientific
targets may face fines or political demotion. All these institutional measurement, thus incentivizing local leaders to emphasize
designs behind the river leader policy give strong incentives to pollution, rather than other critical river management functions
motivate prefecture-level cadres to deploy their organizational such as flood prevention, agricultural irrigation, riverside land use,
ability and available resources to meet river quality performance shipping and transportation, public participation processes and so
goals (Chien, 2016, p. p1; He et al., 2015). on. Second, Qiu's leadership played a crucial role in effectively
implementing the river leader policy. Qiu's successors lacked his
3.3. Short-term success and long-term unsustainability charisma and perseverance, and the current administration in
Kunming has paid less attention to river quality management,
From 2009 to 2012, improvements to pollution interception resulting in backsliding (see Fig. 3 above).
S.-S. Chien, D.-L. Hong / Political Geography 62 (2018) 58e67 65
Second, in China the national rivers run for thousands kilome- pollution issues, but less so for other comprehensive social and
ters cross many provinces, creating certain complexity that frus- agricultural functions, and is more effective for short-term initia-
trate the political arrangements of river leader policy. Take the tives than long-term efforts. In addition, one should be cautious not
Yangtze River as an example. The 6300 km long Yangtze River runs to overgeneralize the applicability of the partified hierarchization
across nine provinces and is managed by the Yangtze River strategy to various kinds of rivers in China. That strategy is basically
Resource Commission under the Ministry of Water Resources. The appropriate for regional rivers across different prefecture-level and
party secretaries of two of these provincial-level administrations county-level administrations but not for other local or national
(Shanghai and Chongqing) are already members of CCP Politburo rivers.
(at the vice-national rank), thus any potential river leader for the The case of Dian Lake shows the effectiveness of the river leader
Yangtze would be a member of CCP Politburo standing committee policy relies on the strong local leadership. Without proper checks
(PSC), who would have the highest national-level party rank/power and balances, or the participation of civil society and media at the
to mobilize vice-national-level and provincial-level leaders local level, the river leader policy may better bring about temporary
involved in the Yangtze River Basin. In addition, promotions or pollution control improvements but cause long-term social and
demotions for a PSC member (the Yangtze River leader) and related political problems. Given the dependence of this approach on
provincial leaders (Yangtze River subsection leaders) would be authoritarian methods, more policy research is urgently needed
mainly determined on the basis of pollution control for the whole into the development of further appropriate institutional mecha-
of the Yangtze River and its subsections in various provinces. nisms to cope with such unintended consequences.
However, these two hypothetical political conditions for a po- In terms of theoretical implications, we integrate geography into
tential Yangtze River Leader are not realistic in practice under CCP the literature on authoritarian environmentalism, which has
political operations. At the beginning, PSC members hold the widely discussed the mechanisms and effectiveness of authori-
highest political authority in China, and they can only be compelled tarian regimes like China in terms of environmental governance
to step down when they reach a mandatory retirement age, thus (Eaton & Kostka, 2014; Gilley, 2012). While political and social
they cannot be incentivized by further promotion or demotion. On process within a territorial context has been highlighted in the
top of that, selection of leaders at the provincial-level is not con- existing literature on existing authoritarian environmentalism,
ducted entirely on the basis of competition of performance (Lü further understanding is needed for how authoritarian power
et al., 2014). The actual selection criteria and process for provin- structures can be adapted to produce transboundary power for
cial leaders in China is highly opaque, but are undoubtedly subject managing flowing materials across different territories. Through
to political considerations such as coalition-building and political explicating the hierarchization strategy, this paper supplements
negotiation among individual leaders and their factions (Jia et al., the transboundary dimension to better understand operations of
2015; Li, 2012). Thus, quality of river pollution management authoritarian environmentalism regimes.
would not be critical criteria for the promotion or demotion of
provincial leaders. That scenario defeats the purpose of the strategy Acknowledgment
of hierarchization through partification which seeks to strike a
proper balance between performance targets and incentives. Given This paper is conducted with a grant from Ministry of Science
the political complexity of assignments and evaluations for leaders and Technology (102-2410-H-002-131-MY3). And the authors
at the national and provincial levels, the strategy of hierarchization appreciate critical comments from Political Geography reviewers
through partification is not well-suited for governing national-scale and useful discussion with Chih-hung Wang, Chih-yu Shih, Yu-Shan
river systems or lakes. This can explain why China sets the various Wu, Shumei Huang, Hsinyi Lu, and Liangchih Chen.
committees under the Ministry of Water Resources to manage
other national rivers (such as the Yellow River Water Resource
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