At one end, people are surprised by the effectiveness of the Chinese national system, and believe that few countries can make such a large -scale mobilization to cope with a large -scale epidemic like China like China.On the other side, many people point the root cause of the spread of the epidemic to China ’s centralized system, especially the effective collection of power implemented by the central government in recent years.The lack of effective participation in social forces is caused by the system.The large -scale diffusion of the epidemic indicates the failure of China's governance system.
The focus of disputes is undoubtedly centralized and decentralized.However, if in -depth inspection of the operation of the Chinese governance system, no matter whether it is a system of centralized power or a system that supports scores, many views actually need to be considered.As far as the epidemic is concerned, the first thing that must be emphasized is that the appearance of the virus has no direct relationship with the system.In ancient and modern Chinese and foreign, there will be viruses under any system. The spread of the virus is regardless of the country, national and race, and a human history is a history of struggle with the virus.
However, the system is related to the diffusion or control of the virus, that is, whether a system is capable of curbing the spread of the virus.Secondly, no system is perfect.The outbreak of a large -scale epidemic is challenged to any country and any system, and any government needs time to mobilize resources to cope.No matter how perfect the system is, challenges always exist.In this sense, a full negation or full affirmation of a system is not in line with reality.
If according to the perspective of decentralization, the question is: If the Chinese system is decentralized, can it avoid the spread of coronary virus?In other words, is the diffusion of this virus related to its centralized power in recent years?The answer is negative.In 2003, the system was more decentralized than today's system. At that time, localities experienced a state of competing with each other, but Shas still spread.Differential rights theory emphasizes the importance of information collection and resource matching, and believes that local governments must have sufficient resources and information to govern places.
On the one hand, compared with the local governments, the central government does not have enough ability to collect and handle local information, so it is difficult to make rational decisions; on the other hand, if the local government does not have enough power to dispose of information, it is difficult to make reasonable decisions.Therefore, the power of resources and information processing must be put down.
This view is obviously strong in economicism; or in other words, it is just to build a power distribution model from the power mechanism of economic development.Similar views are to discuss local economic development and social governance.This view prevailed in China in the 1980s, because it was developed through radical decentralization.However, in the early 1990s, we started to concentrate from the implementation of the tax division system, because countries such as China are so different. If each place pursues development in its own way, the power of the central government will inevitably decline, and ultimately challenge the country's unification.If you apply decentralized views to such fields such as resistance, it will become a problem.
In fact, in the era of market nationalization and globalization, and the free flow of personnel flowing, it has become meaningless to discuss resistance with traditional decentralization concepts.The reason is simple, marketization and liquidity indicate that the epidemic is bound to be nationwide, or even global.If a large number of power related to social and economic development and social governance must be decentralized, but it is by no means public health.Because the movement of personnel in the whole society, the power in this regard should belong to the country.
In the process of the development of the epidemic, there is no contradiction between the disclosure of information and whether the information disclosure is.Dental rights may not be conducive to the disclosure of information.In China's institutional environment, decentralization means localization.The disclosure of information is actually proportional to the integrity, or the centralized power is conducive to the disclosure of information to the country; if the information is not disclosed, it is the reason for other aspects of the system and has nothing to do with the central authority.
Dividement of rights and disadvantages and over -centralization
The question is, is China overdooring?This problem must be analyzed in detail.Simply put, China's centralized power is only politically, and many other aspects are still excessive decentralization, and even manifested as feudal properties.Politics is manifested in organizations (cadres management, especially local personnel appointments), ideology, military and diplomacy, etc., but it is still economically decentralized.The IRS established in the early 1990s symbolized the power of the central government, but in recent years, it has merged with local taxes.Social public services are too decentralized, covering almost all aspects including social security, medical care, public health, education, and public housing.
Despite the centralized power in the political field, because other areas are still excessively decentralized, once the crisis comes, it is easy to cause their own situation.This phenomenon is fully manifested in the local behavior during the diffusion of the crown disease. Various excessive measures such as roads, stopping people, grabbing things, and other places have made China still similar to the feudal from the outside world, not like modern countries.
In its essence, all modern countries are centralized.The form of modern countries is first produced from Europe, which is mainly manifested in the construction of two types of countries, namely the National State and the construction of the central state. The latter is even more important than the former.Since modern times, centralized power has become a general trend in all countries.Taking the United States as an example, from the early Federation to the subsequent federal system, it was centralized; since World War II, the federal government has become more and more power, and the power of the state government has become smaller and smaller.Concentration is an inevitable trend, because with the emergence of citizens, more and more aspects require national levels to coordinate, especially public services.
Because only the centralized power of the political field, and other areas such as socio -economic and other areas are too decentralized, China shows the characteristics of the federal system.It is precisely because of excessive decentralization in the social and economic field that the central government needs more political centralized power to make up for the lack of authority and resources.Since the reform and opening up, in order to promote economic development, market -oriented reforms have been carried out in most social areas, including social security, medical care, public health, education, public housing and other fields. These fields have become the economic field and often evolved into it.The motivation for economic growth.
In modern countries, all these areas are resources of central power.In China, it is difficult for the central government to obtain power from these fields.The central government has no power in these fields, and society has become a victim.To this day, to a large extent, China has only citizens and no citizens.No province has achieved provincial coordination, let alone the overall planning of the national level.
Issue of the centralization system
Where is the issue of today's centralized system?Not only did scholars point out bureaucracy and formalism, but also Chinese officials are also severely condemning bureaucracy and formalism.It should be said that, as the German sociologist Max Weber pointed out, as long as the bureaucratic agencies exist, a certain degree of bureaucracy and formalism (such as formulating forms and other forms of text records) are inevitable.People's dissatisfaction with the existing system is because bureaucracy and formalism are excessive, which exceeds the degree of acceptance of people.
The main reason here is that for many years, China has formed a pyramid governance structure of an inverted triangle.In this structure, there are more officials, there are more people, and there are many people who have commanded and less people.This is what people call excessive formulas. The superiors require the lower level to fill in the form, and the commander requires the people who work to fill in the form.
In other words, bureaucracy and formalism are only result, and the system is the root cause, at least in the following aspects.First, a normal bureaucratic system should be pyramid -shaped, but China is upside down, leading to the movement of power, and the front -line officials who are truly responsible for social governance are very poor. At this level of the street, officials are counted.EssenceThe defect of the pyramid -shaped bureaucracy,It was fully reflected in this epidemic treatment process.Master officials scolded lower -level officials, but the problem was that there were not enough officials at the grassroots level to work.Second, too many middle layers will not only cause deformation of information communication, but even block effective information communication, which will also lead to deformation of policy implementation.For example, Singapore has a population of 5.8 million, but only a first -class government.
In China, most of the cities of the same scale are three and a half government.Chinese history is thousands of years, until the Republic of China is still a third -level government (the county -level government is a grass -roots government).During the Mao Zedong era, the regional level was still a dispatch agency of the provincial government.How much has the government level since reform and opening up?The more reforms, the more levels; the less reform, the smaller the grassroots government.
Third, the democratization and science of decision -making power.After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, due to the needs of anti -corruption, top -level design, and comprehensive deepening reform, decision -making power was concentrated.It should be said that the concentration of decision -making power is necessary.However, it is also necessary to strengthen the democratization and scientific decision -making power.After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the central bureaucracy issued a large number of policies, but some policies lacked democratic procedures, scientific demonstrations, and became problems. When it was below, it became formalism.
Fourth, the standardization of supervision rights.The supervisory right has existed for more than 2,000 years from the Han Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty.The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has re -established the right to supervise according to the trials of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. This is a reform of a basic country's political system, which is of great significance.
Difficulty in supervision goals and execution
However, the newly established supervision rights must be improved and standardized.Many questions have to be answered, including what is necessary to monitor?What should not be monitored?What is the central (or superior) supervision?What should be monitored by the place?There was also a phenomenon of irregular monitoring rights as today as today.When the only goal of supervision right is to find out the problem of execution, it is always possible to find out the problem.
If you find problems in order to find faults, the right to supervise may evolve into internal oppositions and oppose it for opposition; if so, it is difficult to exercise the execution right, and the bureaucratic institution will naturally have inaction and laziness.
Therefore, it is difficult for people to discuss the reform of the Chinese system with simple collection and decentralization today.In many ways, China needs further centralized power to achieve a variety of discouraged feudal systems to transform to the real modern centralized state system.During the epidemic, the situation of being politically reminded of the situation in history that occurred in history.
Although it is difficult for people to imagine the era of repeated feudal separation today, feudal behavior caused by excessive decentralization is reality.The needs of further centralization are particularly manifested in the field of social services.Like all other modern countries, the realization of real centralization depends on the improvement of social services to the central level, so that it is possible to transform today's citizens into citizens of modern countries.The centralized power of these areas helps reduce the degree of power in the political field, because the central government can obtain its administrative power resources from providing social services.
In terms of decentralization, we must not only deal with the central and local relations, but also the relationship between the government and the market, the government and society.As far as central and local relations are concerned, the first thing to change is the pyramid -shaped bureaucracy.This must reduce the middle -level bureaucracy, reduce the number of bureaucrats of superior institutions, and place a large number of cadres on the front line.In this way, the center of gravity of the regime will tilt towards the grassroots level. When the bureaucratic order of the pyramid shape appears, the society can be effectively governed.
Division of market and social rights
What's more important is to decentralize the market and decentralize the society.The decentralization of the market is the theme of the reform plan of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, because at that time, it was determined that the market played a decisive role and the government played a better role in reform and development.Recently, due to various factors, such as various factors, such as the expansion of state -owned enterprises, the conflict between Sino -US trade, and the difficulty of upgrading and transformation of private enterprises, they have encountered great resistance.
The situation of decentralization of society is even more optimistic.The decentralization of the social field was realized for a long time before the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.At least in developed areas such as Guangdong and Zhejiang at that time, social organizations obtained substantial space and power.However, because of the fact that the relationship between society and the government did not handle the relationship between social and government, it could not continue to social rights, which led to today's situation.
In fact, the government also plays an important role in social decentralization, that is, to cultivate responsible citizens through decentralization of social rights.If you cannot cultivate responsible citizens through decentralization of social power, the government must bear the responsibility that should be allowed to bear the society, causing the government to bear overweight.This is obviously manifested in the freedom of remarks that people say loudly today.
In reality, society needs freedom. No society does not want freedom, but freedom is a responsibility.If social members do not have a sense of social responsibility, social freedom is easy to go to anarchy, or the opposite, that is, more control.Here, the government has played a better role that can be expressed to cultivate citizen responsibilities by empowering the society, so as to realize the transfer of social behavior from political control to legal regulations.
From the perspective of which perspective, simple collection and decentralization ideas have been far from meeting the needs of the Chinese governance system, because the reality of China should be concentrated and unimparded, but there should be no decentralization.Therefore, future reforms will inevitably involve two aspects of selectivity and selectivity.For a large country like China, a system that can combine centralized and decentralization is an effective system.
(The author is a professor at the East Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore)
The article only represents personal point of view
