No better time than now to make government work better for society, academic says
Ma Liang, professor of public policy at National Academy of Development and Strategy, Renmin University of China, in Beijing. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
China’s governance system is at an important crossroads, according to a leading Chinese academic.
Ma Liang, professor of public policy at the National Academy of Development and Strategy, at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said that after five years of tackling corruption, now is the time to focus on modernizing government in order to achieve important national goals.
“I see the process as essentially a two-step one. The first task was to clean up the system; now it is to make it more responsive to society’s demands,” he said.
Ma, 36, was speaking in one of the lecture theaters in the Qiushi Building of RUC’s enormous campus in China’s capital.
This is historically a very important time for China. It is on the brink of making big progress by achieving key national targets
Ma Liang, professor of public policy at National Academy of Development and Strategy, Renmin University of China, in Beijing
He has written and lectured extensively on China’s government system, which is now set for major reform.
The fourth plenary session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee, which concluded on Oct 31, set in process a program of national governance modernization.
“This is historically a very important time for China. It is on the brink of making big progress by achieving key national targets. There couldn’t be a better time to look at making government work better,” Ma said.
The most immediate national goals are to eliminate all extreme poverty and to become a “moderately prosperous society” by the end of this year, in time for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China next year. The latter requires a doubling of China’s 2010 GDP.
Ma believes that after this target has been achieved, the modernization of government will require more complex targets other than just GDP.
“There already is more of a focus on the quality of growth, with an emphasis on research and development and innovation so the economy upgrades. Other priorities are environmental and air quality. Shanghai was the first city to abolish GDP targets five years ago,” he said.
“That is not to say that GDP will become irrelevant, because it is still important for job creation, which remains a priority for the central government. Less developed inland provinces will still regard economic growth as important.”
Ma, who first studied public administration at Xi’an Jiaotong University, in Xi’an, capital of Northwest China’s Shaanxi province, spent several years in the last decade as a researcher at Nanyang Technological University, one of Singapore’s top universities. A number of senior Chinese officials have studied there, and Singapore is often held up as a model for good governance in Asia.
“In Singapore they pay high salaries to attract the top talent. This is an issue in China. Chinese officials have to be talented because they have to go through a rigorous examination system, but the salaries offered in the private sector, particularly in areas like finance, might be double or triple. So, one area to look at in China is to fast-track top talent and give people higher salaries.”
Ma said there is also an international dimension to China’s concept of good governance and modernization. This is imbued in such grand projects as the Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2013 by President Xi Jinping.
“China of course is the world’s second-largest economy, but to be a superpower and to get respect from other countries and regions, you have to have your own brand and reputation and then to communicate it to the international community,” Ma said.
“With the Belt and Road it is getting countries to buy into its values of win-win cooperation, mutual benefit, and a shared future and common destiny for mankind. It is not what countries can get out of it in terms of investment, but contribute to it. That is why it is a truly global initiative.”
Domestically, one of the aims of government modernization is to make the government apparatus more accountable and responsive to the people.
“Local officials have to deal with pressures from above and complaints from citizens. In the past they might have paid more attention (to the former). The government has been trying to address this for some time. The fourth plenum, however, has given this momentum, and they really want to implement this.”
At the recent meeting, Xi emphasized the importance of technology in delivering government services, highlighting blockchain technologies, which enable cryptocurrency transactions and improve data storage capability.
“There is a double benefit to this. Not only do you deliver government services better, but also, because the government sector is 40 percent of the economy, it provides a major boost to China’s technology industries,” Ma said.
He said there is evidence of artificial intelligence being used on his own campus, with facial recognition technology in service at the gates.
“Previously there might have been five people to do checks at the gates. Now there are just two. This is something that will reduce the cost of government operations.”
Unlike some Western governments, who notoriously have had difficulty working with IT firms in particular, the Chinese government has close ties with China’s tech giants, according to Ma.
“In Guangdong province, for example, Tencent (one of China’s leading companies and the operator of the WeChat social messaging platform) has invested in a lot of government-related projects,” he said.
Part of the modernization is ease of access to government departments when, for example, setting up businesses and obtaining all the required licensing.
“There have been one-stop shop service centers around for a while, but now some provinces and cities enable you to do it online or by using your cellphone,” Ma said.
The modernization will see the Party take a much bigger role in coordinating the work of various government agencies in a wide variety of areas.
“This reform is about cross-agency collaboration and coordination. So the Party’s involvement is quite helpful in integrating these agencies,” he said.
“This will mainly affect the public sector and those that work in it.”
Ma said the whole point of the modernization is to come up with a government system that is equipped for the challenges of the future.
“To meet the landmark goals China has set itself, it is about rethinking the whole model of development, looking at what worked in the past but might not work in the future and looking at ways to improve.”
