The challenges, and importance, of understanding government in Xi Jinping’s China

The rise and transformation of China has dramatically altered international relationships around the globe, not least in the Asia Pacific region. China dominates trade and its economic strength brings with it greatly increased diplomatic and strategic influence and power. In these circumstances, understanding how government works in China, and how that is changing, is vitally important.

Gaining that understanding is not easy, however. Comparative analysis of public administration is complicated even amongst apparently similar countries, but is particularly hard when cultures, histories and institutional arrangements are so different. Rising international tensions and sharpening differences add further challenges to the engagement necessary for well-informed understanding.

This essay traces how the Greater China Australia Dialogue on Public Administration has addressed the challenges of comparing government practices and developments in the very different jurisdictions of the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Australia, and summarises its latest assessment. It also draws attention to some useful advice on how to engage respectfully without compromising important universal values such as academic freedom and human rights.

Basic challenges

Understanding another nation’s system of government is always challenging (Gray et al., 2012), particularly when that nation’s history, culture and institutional arrangements are very different. It is inevitable that the concepts and frameworks used in one’s own country provide the initial prism through which to study the other nation’s system. But trying to force those “round poles” into another nation’s “square holes” may be an entirely mistaken approach. An open mind is needed to accept that alternative concepts – and values – may shape a system of government.

This, however, is just the beginning of the challenges for those of us in Western countries trying to understand China.

Equally challenging is keeping abreast of the changes that have been occurring in China, including with regard to the role of government. China has experienced perhaps the greatest economic transition the world has seen – from a poor, closed economy to a modestly prosperous market economy, albeit with continuing socialist and authoritarian characteristics. This transformation has also involved embracing some aspects of liberal institutions that are evident in other market-based economies, though adapted very differently. There remains a contradiction in the very term, “socialist market economy”, which China uses to describe itself. This tension helps to explain why it is much easier to identify where China has come from since Deng Xiaoping cast aside Mao Zedong’s policies than it is to describe where exactly it is now and where it might be in the future.

Adding to these challenges are the continuing opaqueness of the Chinese Communist Party’s internal processes and the rise of President Xi Jinping.

Addressing these challenges: the Greater China Australia Dialogue on public administration

There is no simple solution to better understanding China, but there are several essential steps which the Greater China Australia Dialogue on Public Administration has successfully adopted.

The first is to establish a continuing dialogue amongst relevant experts in the different jurisdictions to promote ever-deepening understanding of the different systems of government. The Dialogue was first proposed at a small workshop in Brisbane Australia in 2009, holding its first workshop at Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou in 2012; nine more workshops have been held since.

Second is to ensure a “safe place” for discussion. The Dialogue has had a core set of participants attending regularly, led by some well-established scholars in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia. These principals agreed to a memorandum of understanding in 2011 that ensured the Dialogue could organise and fund annual workshops, but without involving governments or central university administrations that might try to impose conditions. The safe space encouraged participants to speak freely about shortcomings in public administration as well as achievements, and to openly test the research that was presented.

The mix of participants was important as well as the breadth and depth of the presentations. Participants included both senior practitioners (and retired practitioners) and scholars. The core group was supplemented at each workshop by specialists expert in the particular theme chosen for that workshop.

At each workshop, Chinese experts presented on Chinese practice and developments (with Taiwanese experts presenting on Taiwan’s practice and developments) and Australian experts presented on Australia. The quality of the research input was therefore high, strengthened by the presence of other experts from the same jurisdictions. Discussants ensured there was then a focus on commonalities and differences across the jurisdictions, helping those from each jurisdiction to better understand the others’ public administration approaches.

Following each workshop, the most promising papers were selected by the Dialogue principals for development and submission for publication in journals or academic books. Six symposia have been published in various journals (one on taking advantage of technology was published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration in 2020 (Podger, 2020)) and three books have been published by Australian National University Press. This publication record is both an incentive for scholars to participate in the Dialogue and an important means for testing the quality of the research. Material prepared by the Dialogue principals for each symposium and book has drawn attention to both differences and commonalities (e.g., Podger et al., 2012; Podger et al., 2018), helping readers to discern how the systems of government in each jurisdiction are operating, and how they are evolving.

New challenges

While the Dialogue workshops and subsequent publications reveal fundamental differences in public administration across the three jurisdictions studied (the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Australia), the main focus until recently has been on common challenges and on identifying possible opportunities for learning from each other notwithstanding the differences in institutional arrangements. More recent developments have sharpened the differences and raised international tensions, adding another significant challenge for engagement.

Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, the role of the Chinese Communist Party has been strengthened within the country and China has been far more assertive in reclaiming its aspirational place on the world stage. These shifts have been confronted by political responses from Australia as well as the US and some other countries over concerns about both human rights and strategic intentions and security risks.

While there has been no direct limitation from any side on the Dialogue’s activities, there is certainly heightened sensitivity on all sides. Examples include the way Taiwan is referred to in papers emanating from both the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, and the new requirements in Australia for any university agreement with China, formal or informal, to be subject to scrutiny for potential adverse effects on national security (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020). In the case of the Dialogue, such scrutiny did occur in 2021 but very quickly concluded there was no potential adverse effect.

The new challenges, however, are significant: they may well affect the level of confidence surrounding the “safe place”, free from external pressures, that any future Dialogue workshop may be able to offer.

The most recent Dialogue’s assessment of public administration in Xi’s China

The latest book from the Dialogue, Dilemmas in Public Management in Greater China and Australia: Rising Tensions but Common Challenges (Podger et al., 2023), arising from its tenth workshop held in 2021, has recently been published.

As with previous publications, this book contains substantial research papers on public administration developments in the People’s Republic of China (including Hong Kong), Taiwan and Australia. They focus on intergovernmental relations, budgeting and financial management, the civil service and service delivery. The book looks back over developments in the last ten years and forward to likely developments over the next decade. Introductions to each section compare the developments across the jurisdictions identifying many common issues but also fundamental differences, some of which have widened.

The main story about Xi’s China is that “it’s complicated”. While Xi has certainly been strengthening the role of the Chinese Communist Party and centralising power, he is continuing to pursue reforms to improve public services, address corruption, improve environmental protection, enhance financial accountability and build modern regulatory frameworks.

As the opening chapter suggests (Yang et al., 2023, p. 9), from a Western perspective, the role of government in Xi’s party-state seems to involve several paradoxes. The pervasive role of government may reflect in part longstanding Confucian cultural values of considerable acceptance of authority, but there is no doubt that Xi has strengthened the role of the party both within government and across society. Many of the reforms in earlier decades, however, are continuing albeit at times in modified forms. How the tension between market liberalisation and firmer party involvement will be resolved is still evolving. Similarly, government reforms that aim to improve transparency and accountability within government are continuing despite the opaqueness of an increasingly powerful party and authoritarian leadership. And policies to delegate more functions to local government appear to conflict with the political centralisation of power.

Much of the book demonstrates the many common challenges that the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Australia face and the diffusion of public management ideas notwithstanding the very different ways in which they have been adapted. Every jurisdiction is grappling with balancing centralisation and decentralisation and clarifying respective roles and responsibilities, COVID demonstrating the need for capability at all levels of government and coherence across them. China has some way to go in settling financial relationships between its levels of government but interestingly, it makes far more use of systemic experimentation than Australia notwithstanding Australia’s federal system of government.

All three jurisdictions also face significant post-COVID budgetary and economic challenges, but the scale of the task of improving budget control encompassing all fiscal resources across all levels of government in China is formidable. Performance budgeting and management continue to attract attention in all three jurisdictions, though China has adapted the concepts to its own institutional framework, including the central role of the Chinese Communist Party and its cadres across government (a role strengthened by Xi). Despite Australia’s long history of attempting to link budgeting to performance, there remain political obstacles and a large gap between rhetoric and reality.

The capability and performance of the civil service are also receiving attention in all three jurisdictions, though in China’s case this is concentrated on the Chinese Communist Party’s cadres via a “political meritocracy”. The diffusion of new public management (NPM) ideas is again apparent despite their very different applications. The Australian case presented in the book highlights the downsides as well as the benefits of NPM and the need to recalibrate NPM initiatives if civil service capability is to be preserved and enhanced to meet emerging challenges. Increased political control presents a serious risk to capability in both the People’s Republic of China and Australia, and probably Taiwan, too.

All three jurisdictions are investing heavily to improve public services, the scale of the effort being particularly large in the People’s Republic of China. Enormous steps have been taken to develop a comprehensive social security system, health insurance and services for the aged, to expand and strengthen the education system, to address environmental problems and to invest in infrastructure. New technology offers the opportunity for further significant enhancements but there are risks, including to the rights of citizens, which are receiving limited attention in the People’s Republic of China. Despite the greater attention given to such risks, Australia has still experienced serious lapses in recent years.

The book pays particular attention to health and aged care where there are common challenges in establishing clear and sustainable frameworks that encompass the respective roles of government, the market, civil society and individuals and their families. This challenge is particularly acute in the People’s Republic of China as the shift away from reliance on family support for aged care is more recent and the boundaries between government, business and civil society are blurred under the party-state. Despite a common desire for greater responsiveness to the needs and preferences of citizens, China and Australia both reveal a continuing gap between rhetoric and reality.

Common principles? Future directions?

The final chapter of the book (Podger, 2023) summarises the differences in public administration practice evident from research and common challenges and shared lessons. It attempts to identify some shared principles of good public administration across these highly divergent jurisdictions:

• Concern for the longer-term notion of the public interest, despite much short-termism in decision-making;

• The importance of a robust culture of public service, including responsiveness to citizens and communities (particularly for essential services and basic entitlements and accessibility);

• Efforts to improve transparency and accountability (at least for deliverable outputs and access to public services):

• Professional, competent and effective administration; and

• Fairness in administrative procedures and treatment of clients, and equity of access to essential services.

These shared principles of good public administration have not always been applied in practice. Indeed, there have been some developments of concern common across all three jurisdictions. In particular, increased politicisation is likely to have been at the expense of fair administration and responsiveness to citizens, to have adversely affected the capability of professional, competent and effective administration, and to have contributed to a tendency for short-term rather than long-term planning in the public interest.

Being shared across these very different jurisdictions, these principles also, of course, fall well short of Western democratic and liberal values.

While there may have been some naïveté in the West that China’s “opening-up” reforms, including the use of markets both domestically and internationally, would lead eventually to democratic political reform, the market liberalisation of the 1980s through to the 2000s did deliver more personal freedoms and greater government transparency as well as improved living standards for most of the population. There is also growing evidence that the People’s Republic of China’s more recent increase in authoritarianism, with a winding back of some economic reforms, is adversely affecting future economic growth and living standards more generally, not just human rights (e.g., Rajah & Leng, 2022).

This leaves open the possibility of some future reconsideration of the balance between state control and the economic liberalism needed to pursue its objective of becoming a “moderately wealthy” nation.

In the meantime, there is some recognition in the West of the need to repair damage done over the last decade to democratic principles among Western nations themselves, particularly as the West criticises the policies and actions of authoritarian political regimes. For example, Australia may with justification criticise China’s authoritarianism, but it too has experienced excessive politicisation at the expense of impartial administration of the law (e.g., Robodebt Royal Commission, 2023).

Implications for engagement

The book demonstrates that meaningful and ongoing engagement with China is possible despite international tensions.

Engagement requires an open mind to different cultures and traditions, and to institutional arrangements that differ greatly from those in the West. It must allow scholars from different jurisdictions to express their own views based on their research, and not force a shared view. It is also important not to require anyone to compromise the values they hold dear. Accordingly, care is needed to ensure engagement does not serve to condone or legitimise constraints on academic freedom or human rights.

The American Society for Public Administration recently issued useful guidance on how to engage internationally while respecting academic freedom and other core values (American Society for Public Administration, 2023). It presents no simple rules, recognising that reasonable people may disagree about the right course of action. But it emphasises that there is an obligation to think carefully.

The guidance identifies seven key values that need to be upheld and balanced:

• Promoting dialogue and understanding;

• Protecting academic freedom;

• Respect for human rights;

• Supporting the development of scholarly capacity;

• Respect for self-determination by communities;

• Protecting the safety and dignity of colleagues;

• Accuracy, fairness and transparency of decision-making.

The Greater China Australia Dialogue has operated consistently with these values, though it has never explicitly articulated them.

Engagement with China is crucial, despite rising international tensions. Indeed, engagement is more important when such tensions exist; but care needs to be taken to get the engagement right.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Podger

Andrew Podger is Honorary Professor of Public Policy in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. His public service career spanned a range of portfolios, specializing mostly in social policy and public management. He was Secretary of the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care from 1996 to 2002 and Public Service Commissioner from 2002 to 2004. He joined ANU in 2005, publishing widely on public administration, retirement incomes and health policy. He was National President of the Institute of Public Administration Australia from 2005 to 2010.