Lecture 2

Structure and Political Governance of

Public Administration

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1. The Organizational System of PA China’s PA system is composed of different layers.

1. Governmental agencies. In 2015, the State Council directs 25 ministries and commissions and several

dozens of other organizations. (http://www.gov.cn/guowuyuan/gwy_zzjg.htm )

2. Administrative agencies of the Court, People’s Congress, People’s Political Consultation Conference, Chinese Communist Party, Youth League, Trade Union, Women’s Union and some mass organizations. Their employees are recognized as civil servants. In 2015, there were totally 7 million civil servants

3. Public service units sponsored and supervised by political and administrative agencies. Mostly educational, medical, and research institutes There are about 30 million public service unit employees.

4. Government-sponsored mass organizations, social organizations, intermediate agencies, and state-owned enterprises.

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The Unitary System of Government (2004)

Level Administrative Units No. Average Population

Central The State Council 1

Province

4 Directly-Supervised Municipalities, 23 Provinces (including Taiwan), 5 Minority Autonomous Regions, 2 Special Administrative Districts

34 38,895,951

Municipality283 Municipalities, 17 Regions, 33 Minority Autonomous Regions 333 3,971,358

County

374 County-Level Municipalities, 1,464 Counties, 862 Districts, 117 Minority Autonomous Counties, and 55 Others

2,862 462,076

Town36,042 Towns, 5,829 Streets,1,404 Minority Autonomous Towns 43,275 30,559

Self-Government Mass Organizations

625,147 Villagers’ Committees, 80,017 Urban Residents’ Committees 705,164 1,875

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Administrative Jurisdictions of China

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2. Political Governance of Public Administration The Constitution ordains that the executive branch of the state derives

its power from and is accountable to People’s Congress. It also recognizes the supreme political leadership of CCP on all the state apparatuses.

CCP holds the political, ideological and organizational leadership on the state (政治、思想与组织领导 ). CCP establishes a parallel organizational structure to that of the

government. PA in China can hardly be applied a politics-administration dichotomy

perspective. Fusion of CCP and PA is one important feature of Chinese PA.

Most governmental officials are party members. Leading local officials are always the first party secretary of the local party branch.

When making and implementing policies, officials have dual identities as civil servant and party cadre.

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A party with unified leadership Party’s Organizational Principle: democratic centralism One-party leadership, Multi-party cooperation Party’s comprehensive leadership: political, ideological,

and organizational From revolutionary to pragmatic

(1935-1976) (1978-1989) (1989-2003) (2003-2012) (2012-) Mao Zedong Deng Xiaoping Jiang Zemin Hu Jintao Jinping Xi

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CCP (Party)

State Council(Government)

NPC(Parliament)

Supreme Court

CCP: Chinese Communist PartyNPC: National People’s Congress

Basic political institutions

Supreme Procuratorate

This structure extends to local governments

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Nine members of the standing committee of political bureau of the 17th central committee (Elected in 2007 and ended in Nov 2012)

LI Changchun XI Jinping LI Keqiang HUO Guoqiang ZHOU Yongkang

HU Jintao WU Bangguo WEN Jiabao JIA Qinglin