During the Chinese Communist Party’s (NCCCP) 17th National Congress, the party chief Hu Jintao said the party would “step up our efforts to streamline government agencies, explore ways to establish expanded departments with integrated functions, and improve the mechanisms for coordination and collaboration between government departments.” [1] A plan for the sixth administrative reform, called the “greater departments system,” is now under evaluation and will be sent to the State Council.
The followings are excerpts from the Epoch Times report on January 15. [2]
“The ‘greater departments system’ refers to having one single department to conduct the central administration of all state affairs that have similar functions and scope of business in the framework of government bodies. The benefits of this system are: avoiding the overlapping of government and multi-level management, improving administrative efficiency, and lowering administrative costs.
Although the news of combining of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) at the end of 2007 was negated, Zheng Xinli — deputy director of Policy Research Office of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (PROCCCCP) — said that a greater department was considered to have been established for the financial sector.
Signs indicate that the ‘greater departments system’ brought up in Hu Jintao’s Report to the 17th NCCCP will be the focus of China’s reform in 2008.
There have been reports that the State Council will set up a Ministry of Energy to consolidate the energy related functions from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR), the Ministry of Water Resources (MW and the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC). The new Ministry will also administer the state-owned energy giants such as China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China Petrochemical Corporation (SINOPEC), China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), and the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC).
Experts predict that if the Ministry of Energy will be established, a new round of reshuffling of administrative officials will occur during the Two Conferences (the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) in March.
The Chinese government’s administration cost is gigantic. Under the State Council, in additional to the General Office, there are 28 Cabinet Ministries, one special agency, 18 Departments directly under The State Council, 4 Offices under That State Council, 10 State Bureau Administrations under various Ministries and Commissions, 14 Institutions directly under The State Council, and more than 100+ coordination agencies.
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In contrast, there are only 13 Cabinet departments in the U.S. and 12 ministries in Japan. German’s Bundesregierung (Federal Cabinet) is composed of 15 ministries and Her Majesty’s Government in the UK has 18 ministries. The number of ministries in China doubles or even triples those in some other nations. The huge management cost is as high as ten fold other governments, with a gigantic number of public servants.
However some experts doubt the effectiveness of this reform. Ren Jianming, the director of the Anti-Corruption and Governance Research Center at Tsinghua University said, "It seems that five years has become a cycle for government reform. The 1998 and 2003 reforms, which were centered around streamlining these agencies, failed to stop the cycle of expansion-after-streamlining. The ‘greater departments system’ is faces the same problem.
It’s said that the biggest issue that faces the ‘greater departments system’ reform is how to prevent the concentration of power and the consequent corruptions.
Fan Yafeng, a fellow at the Law Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Science believes that the ‘greater departments system’ reform belongs to administrative reform, while the transformation of the functions of the government is the deeper issue. The reform that the government needs is to be under the rule of law. The expansion of the powers of the government together with the distribution of the rights to taxation and fiscal expenditure need to be processed under the rule of law too.”
Endnotes:
[1] Full text of Hu Jintao’s Report to Seventeenth National Congress of Chinese Communist Party on October 15, 2007
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/24/content_6938749.htm
[2] The Epoch Times, January 15, 2008
http://epochtimes.com/gb/8/1/15/n1977583.htm