Public Administration of

Mainland China
Pro. LYU Fang
China University of Political Science
and Law
Outline
 C1. Introduction and Background (Oct 26th ) ,
 C2. Central-local Government Relationship (Oct 28th )
 C3. Government Functions and Public Organizations
(Nov 2th)
 C4. Civil Service System (Nov 4th)
 C5. Administrative Reform (Nov 9th)
 C6. Anti-corruption(Nov 11th )
 C7. Wrap Up and Q&A (Nov 16th )
Reference
朱云汉:《高思在云：中国兴起与全球秩序重组》，中国人民大学出版社2015年
版。
Daniel A. Bell, “the China Model :Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy
”,Princeton University Press,2015.
Backer, Larry Cata (2009) “The party as polity, the Communist Party, and the Chinese
constitutional state: a theory of state-party constitutionalism.” Journal of Chinese and
Comparative Law 16, 1: 101–168.
David Schambaugh, “China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaption”, Washington
D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2008.
Question for discussion
 What is the greatest difficulties when you
make public policies if you are a leader of
central government in PRC?
 C1. Introduction and Background

 1.Origins and development of PA

 2.Introduction
1.1 A land of diversity
1.2 A land of rapid development
 3. Predicts
 4.Background
4.1political system
4.2public administration
 1.Origins and development of PA

 Emergence of field of public administration

 Politics- administration dichotomy (Wilson
1887;Goodall,1900 )
 “Ideal type” of bureaucracy (Weber 1922)
Bureaucracy refers to an organizational form
characterized by division stratification, centralization
unification and command obedience.
 Comparative public administration: move away from
US-centered PA
Origins and development of
PA
 1960s-early 70s: ‘New’ public administration
（新公共行政）
Obligations of PA to society
The values advocated by the new public
administration, such as social equity,
representative system, responsiveness,
participation and social responsibility
1980s-New Public Management(新公共管理)
‘reinventing government’:
decentralization,
contracting,
privatization,
performance-based evaluation
 2000- New Public Governance（新公共治理）
2. Introduction
2.1 China’s grand size is a key variable of
governance.
a land of diversity
Population and land area
Economy
2.2 The rapid development of economy
makes it difficult to manage.
a land of rapid development
 A Land of Diversity
McAfee & McMillan
organizational diseconomy of scale (组织规模的负效率)
Private information creates a cost of operating a hierarchy, which becomes
larger as the hierarchical distance between the information source and the
decision maker increases.

The size of the country provides market size, which is conducive to economic
growth and to reducing the fixed costs of those essential public goods (such as
national defense), however, big states have more costs for internal integration
because of their internal groups and cultural differences.
• What’s the relationship between the span(
跨度) and level（层级） of management
？
2.1.1Population and land area
 China Europe
 1.4billion population 0.75
 9.60million square km 10.16
1 46
the populous provinces in China
Province Million Nation Million
广东 126 Japan 126
山东 102 Germany 83
河南 99.4 UK 67
四川 83.7 France 67
江苏 84.8 Italy 60
河北 74.6 Spain 47
湖南 68.2 Norway 5.37
安徽 61.9 Sweden 10
湖北 58.8
浙江 55.9
China’s Population Density
Distribution
2.1.2Economy
 One state - four worlds

 Infrastructure
 Public service
Gini-Coefficient
unbalanced
 5.50 million people live
below the poverty line in
2019--national statistic
bureau
 More than 200 million
people are still living under
the poverty line set by the
World Bank. And that is
roughly the population of
France, Germany and UK
combined in 2016 .
 China’s grand size increases the difficulty of
governance.
 Is it easy or difficult to manage a fast-growing
organization?
2.2A Land of rapid development
 The social transformation in China for decades has taken hundreds
of years for the western countries to complete.
 Given the rapid economic and administrative evolution that China
has undergone during the last four decade, changes have led to
structural changes in China.
 The pre-modern , modern and post-modern co-exist in the same
period in China.
 2.2.1GDP
 2.2.2 Agriculture, Industry and Service Industry
 2.2.3 The world’s top 500
 2.2.4The headquarters
 2.2.1GDP

• The GDP in China was

worth 15400 billion US
dollars in 2019. The GDP
value of China represents
15.4 percent of the world
economy.
• GDP in China averaged
1970.49 USD Billion from
1960 until 2017, reaching an
all time high of 12237.70
USD Billion in 2017 and a
record low of 47.21 USD
Billion in 1962.
GDP (1978-2018)
China’ GDP Growth
world GDP ranking 2010
 (IMF database issued 04/11/2011)(US dollar
billion)
 World 62909.274
 001 USA 14657.800
 002 PRC 5878.257
 003 JAPAN 5458.872
 006 UK 2247.455
world GDP ranking 2014
 (14/4/2015 US dollar: billion)
 The world 77301，958
 001 USA 17418，925
 002 PRC 10380，380
 003 JAPAN 4616，335
 005 UK 2945，146
World GDP ranking 2017
 (US dollar: billion)
 001 USA 19417
 002 PRC 11795
 003 JAPAN 4841
 005 UK 3423
USA GDP is 14 times  Japan’s GDP is 4 times
more than China in 1990. of China in 1978
8 times in 2000  Chinese GDP is 2 times
2.4 times in 2010 of Japan in 2014
1.6 times in 2014  Chinese GDP is nearly
1.3 times in 2017
3 times of Japan in 2018
 In 1992, Taiwan accounted for 45% Chinese
mainland’s GDP.
 In 2014, less than 5%

 In 1997, Hongkong accounted for 15.6%

Chinese Mainland’s GDP.
 In 2014, 2.8%
 Shenzhen has become more innovative city
than Hong Kong and Taiwan. In the middle of
2016, Shenzhen has 16 early entrepreneurs in
every 100 adults.
 This proportion is more than two times higher
than 5% in 2009 ,Israeli and American
entrepreneurs respectively 11.3% and 12.6%.
 The Chinese economy has increased a Taiwan
of 2014 in every 8 months.
 The Chinese economy has increased a South
Korea of 2014 in every 24 months.
 The Chinese economy has increased an India
of 2014 in every 33 months
2.2.2Agriculture, Industry and Service
Industry

 1978  2017
 39.9:48.2:21.9  7.9∶40.5∶51.6,
 China USA
 2017 115
 2018 120 126
 2020 133 121
2.2.4The headquarters

 55 companies among
the world’s top 500
have set up headquarters
in Beijing.
 Beijing
 Tokyo
 Paris
 New York
 London
 Rapid development can hide, or in some
cases exacerbate a number of deeper
problems.
3.Some predicts about China’s
economic development
3.1 Fogel (2010)
 Nobel Prize winning economist Fogel (2010) has used
mathematical economic production functions to predict that
China will continue to grow at an average annual rate of 8.0 %
until 2040, by which time China will be twice as rich (in per
capita terms) as Europe.
 In terms of the overall size of its economy, Fogel（2010）
predicts that “China’s share of global GDP – 40 % – will
dwarf that of the United States (14 %) and the European Union
(5 %) 30 years from now”.
 3.2 Dadush and Stancil (2010)
 Other economists are more cautious. Dadush and
Stancil’s (2010) economic models predict that China
will grow by “just” 5.6 % per year until 2050,
compared with 5.9 % growth in India.
 They expect China to overtake the USA in total
economic output in 2032. In their model, Europe will
shrink from 24 % of global national income in 2009
to 10 % in 2050.
3. 3 Ian Morris，“Why the West Rules – For Now”，Profile
Books,2010.
 Prof Morris provides a fascinating account of the progress of two poles of
civilization. These are the “west”, the civilizations that descended from the
agricultural revolution in the so-called “fertile crescent” in today’s Middle
East, and the “east”, the civilizations that descended from an independent
revolution in a part of what is now China.
 His conclusion is that the west was somewhat more advanced than the east
until the fall of the western Roman empire, behind it from then until the
18th century, and then ahead. Eastern exploitation of the “advantages of
backwardness”, a recurring theme, suggests another reversal in the 21st
century.
Flying Geese Progression(FGP)

 East Asia, whose very open

economies put it at the front line of
globalization, traditionally followed
a pattern known as flying geese,
whereby entire industries migrated
from richer to poorer countries as
they developed.
 Flying Geese Progression(FGP) in
one state (yuanyuan Ang,2018)
Leap-frog development

 advantages of backwardness
 模仿、借鉴、改良、创新、超越、领先
 China introduced high-speed rail in
1990s.And now, China plans to sell the
system to Malaysia, Brazil, UK and USA.

 China has become one of the most

developed countries in respect of
application of the Internet.
 A Land of Rapid
A Land of Diversity Development
• The diversity brings • The strategic concentration
of capital, labor, and
about regional infrastructure fostered rapid
disparities and the development in the coastal
rural-urban gap. areas of China, but it is
important to lead to a
rebalancing of growth.
 the Change in the principal
contradiction
“the principal contradiction in
Chinese society is one between
the ever-growing material and
cultural needs of the people and
the low level of production.”
(This statement had been in
place since 1981.)
 “the principal contradiction
facing Chinese society has
evolved to be that between
unbalanced and inadequate
development, and the
people’s ever-growing
needs for a better life.”
--19th National Congress
of CCP
 These two major judgments put forward a new
proposition for promoting the modernization
of state governance and the development of
public administration.
 Instead of purely focusing on the speed of
economic growth, policy makers now also
emphasize higher productivity, higher
profitability, more innovation and efficient
distribution, as well balanced development
between urban and rural areas, and among
different regions of the country.
4. Background
 4.1 political system
 4.2 public administration
4.1political system
——CCP
Party-state:
party-state relationship
4.1.1 Several Controversies
4.1.2the party embedded into the
state/government
--a system
4.1.3The Party System
Democracy vs. Political Meritocracy
(Daniel Bell )
 Individualism-protecting  Meritocratic principle
individual rights  Strong government
 Weak government-  1.Leaders chosen on basis of
superior ability, more likely to
separation of powers
abuse power
 Tyranny of majority，  2.Political hierarchies may
minority ,voting become frozen, thus
community ,undermine social mobility
&competitive individual  3.Difficult to legitimize the
system to those outside the
power structure
Political Meritocracy and the Limits of
Democracy
He describes the Chinese
system as a “vertical
democratic meritocracy.
He was referring to its
excruciating examination
and political selection
process, ostensibly the
Chinese rungs of political
ascension.
Political Meritocracy
• David Brooks, “The Dictatorship of Talent”，the
New York Times
• A political system should aim to select and
promote leaders with superior ability and virtue.
 China, respect rule of law and human rights while
making reforms to one person one vote, such as
adding a meritocracy house in the legislature and
“institutional arrangements that help prevent the
incompetent citizens from having too much a
voice in……political matters”
 Representative Democracy（代议制） vs.
Representational Democracy（代表制）
(Shaoguan Wang) Based on empirical evidence,it presents

three arguments:
 Democracy stands for "rule  1.Chinese people tend to favor
representational democracy over
by the people". representative democracy(the demand-
 If so, it matters how the side);
 2.China has developed its own kind of
people of a country representational democracy in theory and
understand the meaning of in practice(the supply-side);
3.although China‘s political system have
their "rule” and how a

many serious problems, the practice of
country translates such an representational democracy has made
China’s party-state fairly responsive to
abstract principle into societal needs(the outcomes). As a result ,
actual practice. the current regime in China enjoys
relatively robust legitimacy across the
population.
Representative Democracy（代议制） vs.
Deliberative Democracy（协商民主）
(Baogang He)
 Democracy involves the  Deliberation is a mode of communication involving
inclusion of individuals
in matters that affect
them through
distributions of
empowerments such as

votes and rights.
 Citizens only have rights
to vote once every  China's local experiments reveal and confirm the law of
four/five years. They are
outsider of politics.
persuasion-based influence. Combinations of non-
inclusive power and deliberative influence—
authoritarian deliberation—are readily identifiable in
China, probably reflecting failures of command
authoritarianism under the conditions of complexity and
pluralism produced by market-oriented development.
Chinese local practitioners have employed and modified
Deliberative polling techniques to address the practical
questions on representation and deliberation in their
decision-making process. They make contribution to the
debates in the politics of public deliberation.
political empowerment, that is, citizens are empowered
to make their own decision on the condition that their
deliberation must be based on elected representation.
Procedural Democracy vs. Substantive
Democracy (Tianjian Shi )
 The citizens are busy and  The Enlightenment of
have no time to engage in Confucius'political philosophy
politics, they have to hand is that the criterion to measure
over the power to some a ruler is not how he came to
professionals. power, but whether he can
 But for these professionals, represent the interests of the
the people have to retain the people.
right to step down in the
next election if they are not
satisfied with them.
4.1.2the party embedded into the
state/government
The system including the following factors:
a)the leadership of the Party committee 党委领导
b)put under centralized management by specialized departments
归口管理
c) One agency, two brands 合署办公
d)ideological battles 意识形态
e)political consultations 政治协商
f)united front 统一战线
g)mass line 群众路线
4.1.3 The Party system
 Organization principle
 Learning system and Adaption
Learning System and Adaption
 Since the beginning of “reform and opening” ,
the CCP has based its legitimacy at economic
performance, social stability and nationalism.
 There are lots of challenges such as continued
corruption, new social forces and economic
downturn.
 So the CCP need to adapt to the challenges in the
process of rapid marketization and social
transformation.
the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and
Tools for Building a Learning Organization

• A Learning organization
• Personal Mastery
• Improving Mental
Models
• Building Shared Vision
• Team Learning
• Systems Thinking
the Politburo’s collective study
sessions
 involving not only the Politburo members but also important
departmental and provincial leaders
 in the Hall of Embracing Benevolence from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
 at irregular intervals once every every 40 days
 in the form of a round-table discussion，the lecturer and the
Central Politburo members sit in the first circle and the
departmental and provincial directors and vice-directors sit in
the outer circle, totaling roughly 70 people
 2 lecturers every time, from CASS, Tsinghua
university,Renmin university ,Beijing university
4.2 Public Administration
--Government ,business and civil society relationship：
What ought to do? functions
--Central-local government relationship,
Inter-governmental relationship, Civil servant system :
 Who to do ?
--Public policy:
 How to do ?
--Performance management and evaluation ：
 How done？
Outline
 C1. Introduction and Background (Oct 26th ) ,
 C2. Central-local Government Relationship (Oct 28th )
 C3. Government Functions and Public Organizations
(Nov 2th)
 C4. Civil Service System (Nov 4th)
 C5. Administrative Reform (Nov 9th)
 C6. Anti-corruption(Nov 11th )
 C7. Wrap Up and Q&A (Nov 16th )
Course Assessment *(50%)
 Individual Policy Analysis Paper (50%)
 Students are expected to write an individual case
study paper related to the public administration
reform of Mainland China, which should focus on a
specific policy area such as public service , public
policy or corruption and so on.

 It is the student’s responsibility to find his/her own

policy area for the paper. Students are expected to
offer their own ideas and analysis on the selected
policies.
 The individual policy analysis paper should
be no less than 3,000 words (including
reference, altogether about 10 pages). This
paper is due on 11th December,
2023(Monday). Late submission will NOT be
accepted.
 fangl@cupl.edu.cn