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Studies of Central–Provincial Relations in the People's Republic of China: A Mid-Term Appraisal*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Jae Ho Chung
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Spatial aspects of power have been relatively neglected in the field of political science in general, with the notable exception of federalism. Many have argued that the study of political power has generally confined itself to the national level and paid scant attention to the interactions between the central government on the one hand and regional and local authorities on the other. Several tendencies have worked against the flourishing of political research on central-local government relations in the last three decades. First, in methodological terms, the “behavioural revolution” that swept the discipline caused a sudden premature end to the institutional analysis so crucial to central-local government relations. Secondly, in thematic terms, political scientists have been overly preoccupied with central-level processes of decision-making while neglecting the politics of central-local relations. Thirdly, in conceptual terms, the rise of “state” as an encompassing concept was facilitated largely at the expense of complex intra-governmental dynamics.

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Concepts and Methods
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The China Quarterly , Volume 142 , June 1995 , pp. 487 - 508
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1995

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References

1. See Heaphey, James J., “Spatial aspects of development administration,” in Heaphey, James J. (ed.), Spatial Dimensions of Development Administration (Durham: Duke University Press, 1971), p.4Google Scholar; and Rousseau, Mark O. and Zariski, Raphael, Regionalism and Regional Devolution in Comparative Perspective (New York: Praeger, 1987), p. 2.Google Scholar It should be noted, however, that a few countries, such as Britain and Italy, have long constituted subjects of scholarly inquiry along this line.

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5. In the case of China, no survey data are yet available on the values of national or provincial officials. Even in the present day of relative openness, there is a serious feasibility problem of survey research on how prevalent localism is among the Chinese people. Secondly, even if we can conduct surveys of ordinary Chinese, it is very uncertain whether the results can be readily generalized to gauge the degree to which national and provincial leaders hold on to their local identities and the extent to which these parochial values affect their political behaviour. Finally, even if it is possible to survey high-level officials, the most likely responses from them would be the “politically acceptable ones” dictated by the Party norms of “anti-departmentalism.”

6. Examples are Solinger, Dorothy, Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977Google Scholar) and Goodman, David S. G., Centre and Province in the People's Republic of China: Sichuan and Guizhou, 1955–65 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986Google Scholar). For the more recent period and especially concerning the area of foreign economic policy, see Ferdinand, Peter, “Regionalism,” in Geral, Segal (ed.), Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy Reform (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1990), pp. 135–158Google Scholar and Segal, Gerald, China Changes Shape: Regionalism and Foreign Policy (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1994).Google Scholar

7. See Yang, Richard H. and others (eds.), Chinese Regionalism: The Security Dimension (Boulder: Westview, 1994Google Scholar), which contains 13 interesting articles on military regionalism, including those on six regions and provinces. For a perceptive study on coastal identities of Guangdong, Taiwan and Hong Kong, see White, Lynn and Cheng, Li, “China coast identities: regional, national and global” in Lowell, Dittmer and Kim, Samuel S. (eds.), China's Quest for National Identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 154–193.Google Scholar Also see Friedman, Edward, “China's north-south split and the forces of disintegration,” Current History, No. 575 (September 1993), pp. 270–274Google Scholar; Hsia Chang, Maria, “China's future: regionalism, federation, or disintegration,” Studies in Comparative Communism, Vol. 25, No. 3 (September 1992), pp. 211–227CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goodman, David S. G., “Provinces confronting the state?” in Kuan, Hsin-Chi and Maurice, Brosseau (eds.), China Review 1992 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1992), pp. 3.2–19Google Scholar; and Waldron, Arthur, “Warlordism versus federalism: the revival of a debate,” The China Quarterly, No. 121 (March 1990), pp. 116–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For Chinese publications, see a contribution by a professor of the Central Party School, “Dalu shehui maodun yu Deng Xiaoping hou zhengju yuce” (“Contradictions in Mainland society and some predictions about post-Deng politics”) in Jiushi niandai (The Nineties), March 1994, pp. 49–57; and Guoguang, Wu and Zhaojun, Wang, Deng Xiaoping zhihou de Zhongguo (China after Deng) (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1994), pp. 181–282.Google Scholar For a contrasting assessment to many “imminent-disintegration” theses, see John Fitzgerald, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated: the history of the death of China,” in Goodman, David S. G. and Gerald, Segal (eds.) China Deconstructs: Politics, Trade and Regionalism (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 21–58.Google Scholar

8. See, for instance, Rousseau and Zariski, Regionalism and Regional Devolution in Comparative Perspective, chs. 1–2; Smith, Brian C., Decentralization: The Territorial Dimension of the State (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1985Google Scholar); and Kiggundu, Moses N., Managing Organizations in Developing Countries: An Operational and Strategic Approach (West Hartford: Kumarian Press, 1990Google Scholar), ch. 7.

9. For the distinction between systemic and partial decentralization, see Dyker, David A., “Decentralization and the command principle: some lessons from the Soviet experience,” Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1981), pp. 144—45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Regarding budgetary figures as an imperfect indicator, see Paddison, Ronan, The Fragmented State: The Political Geography of Power (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), p. 40Google Scholar; and Wolman, Harold, “Decentralization: what it is and why we should care,” In Bennett, Robert J. (ed.), Decentralization, Local Governments, and Markets: Towards A Post-Welfare Agenda (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 40–41.Google Scholar

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11. For the undetermined effect of fiscal arrangements on the relative powers of central and local governments, see Lieberthal, Kenneth and Oksenberg, Michel, Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures and Processes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 338.Google Scholar For an interesting study that utilizes a decentralization approach in the area of local legislation, see Lin, Sen, “A new pattern of decentralization in China: the increase of provincial powers in economic legislation,” China Information, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Winter 1992–93), pp. 27–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Tong's “Fiscal reform, elite turnover and central-provincial relations in post-Mao China” also presents an interesting approach that links budgetary arrangements with personnel politics. For studies that examine a multitude of dimensions including those of fiscal arrangements, personnel, implementation, information control and foreign economic relations, see Ho Chung, Jae and Hing Lo, Shiu, “Beijing's relations with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region: an inferential framework for the post-1997 arrangement,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 68, No. 2 (Summer 1995CrossRefGoogle Scholar) and Ho Chung, Jae, “Central-provincial relations,” in Lo, Chi Kin, Tsui, Kai Yuen and Suzanne, Pepper (eds.), China Review 1995 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

12. See, for instance, O'tool, Lawrence J. Jr. and Montjoy, Robert S., “Interorganizational policy implementation,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 44, No. 6 (November-December 1984), pp. 491–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kenneth, Hanf and Scharpf, Fritz W. (eds.), Interorganizational Policy Making: Limits to Coordination and Central Control (London: Sage Publications, 1978).Google Scholar

13. Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China, ch. 7; Shirk, Susan L., The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993Google Scholar), part 3; Lampton, Policy Implementation in Post-Mao China; Lampton, David M., “Chinese politics: the bargaining treadmill,” Issues and Studies, Vol. 23, No. 3 (March 1987), pp. 11–41Google Scholar; and Kenneth, Lieberthal and Lampton, David M. (eds.), Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).Google Scholar

14. A notable exception is Lieberthal and Lampton, Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China which intentionally selected most of its issue areas from those unrelated to resource allocation. See Lieberthal, “Introduction: the ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ model and its limitations,” pp. 1–30.

15. For exemplary lists of these variables, see Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China, pp. 330,335–39; Goodman, Centre and Province in the People's Republic of China, p. 193; and Teiwes, Frederick C., “Provincial politics in China: themes and variations,” in Lindbeck, John M. H. (ed.), China: Management of A Revolutionary Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971), pp. 149–177.Google Scholar

16. Examples include Vogel, Ezra, Canton under Communism: Programs and Politics in A Provincial Capital, 1949–1968 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969Google Scholar); McMillen, Donald H., Chinese Communist Power and Policy in Xinjiang, 1949–1977 (Boulder: Westview, 1979Google Scholar); and Forster, Keith, Rebellion and Factionalism in A Chinese Province: Zhejiang, 1966–1976 (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1990).Google Scholar

17. Harding, Harry, “The study of Chinese politics: toward a third generation of scholarship,” World Politics, Vol. 36, No. 2 (January 1984), pp. 291–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. See, for instance, Paul E. Schroeder, “Territorial actors as competitors for power: the case of Hubei and Wuhan,” in Lieberthal and Lampton, Bureaucracy, Politics and Decision Making in Post-Mao China, pp. 283–307; Prime, Penelope B., “Central-provincial investment and finance: the Cultural Revolution and its legacy in Jiangsu province,” in Joseph, William A., Wong, Christine P. W. and David, Zweig (eds.), New Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 197–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zweig, David, “Peasants, ideology, and new incentive systems: Jiangsu province, 1978–1981,” in Parish, William L. (ed.), Chinese Rural Development: The Great Transformation (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1985), pp. 141–163Google Scholar; White, Lynn T. III, “Local autonomy in China during the Cultural Revolution: the theoretical uses of an atypical case,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 70 (1976), pp. 479–491CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Chan, Alfred L., “The campaign for agricultural development in the Great Leap Forward: a study of policy-making and implementation in Liaoning,” The China Quarterly, No. 129 (March 1992), pp. 52–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. One scholar, for instance, comments that “because of the paucity of comparative studies, it is difficult to assess whether the events herein described were unique to Zhejiang or typical of trends in other provinces.” See Keith Forster, “Factional politics in Zhejiang, 1973–1976” in Joseph et al., New Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution, p. 108.

20. An example of the former is Goodman, Centre and Province in the People's Republic of China; and an example of the latter is Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China, ch. 7. Also see Chamberlain, Heath B., “Transition and consolidation in urban China: a study of leaders and organizations in three cities, 1949–53,” in Scalapino, Robert A. (ed.), Elites in the People's Republic of China (Seattle & London: University of Washington Press, 1972), pp. 245–301.Google Scholar For a Chinese study that compares three provinces of Shandong, Hubei and Sichuan, see Lieguang, Ma, Zhongguo geshengqu jingji fazhan bijiao (Comparison of Economic Development in China's Provinces) (Chengdu: Chengdu keji daxue chubanshe, 1993Google Scholar), ch. 5.

21. An effective alternative may be collaborative research projects on multiple provinces, such as Jonathan, Unger (ed.), The Pro-Democracy Protests in China: Reports from the Provinces (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1991Google Scholar) and The Cultural Revolution in the Provinces (Cambridge: East Asia Research Center, Harvard University Press, 1971).

22. This whole category was pioneered by Teiwes, “Provincial politics in China,” pp. 116–189. A more recent work is Tong, “Fiscal reform, elite turnover and central-provincial relations in post-Mao China.”

23. See Lieberthal, Kenneth, “China and political science,” Political Science, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 1986), p. 70Google Scholar; and Yung Wei, “Social science and the methodology of contemporary Chinese studies: a critical evaluation” and Goodman, David S. G. “The methodology of contemporary Chinese studies: political studies and the PRC,” in Yu-Ming, Shaw (ed.), Power and Policy in the PRC (Boulder: Westview, 1985), p. 328 and p. 343Google Scholar, respectively.

24. See Huo Shitao, “Regional inequality variations and central government policy, 1978–1988” in Jia Hao and Lin Zhimin, Changing Central-Local Relations in China, pp. 181–206; Denny, David L., “Provincial economic differences diminished in the decade of reform,” in Joint Economic Committee (ed.), China's Economic Dilemmas in the 1990s: The Problems of Reforms, Modernization, and Interdependence (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1992), pp. 186–208Google Scholar; Yuen Tsui, Kai, “China's regional inequality, 1952–1985,” Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol. 15 (1991), pp. 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tong, James, “Effects of fiscal reforms on interprovincial variations in medical services in China, 1979–1984,” in Bahry, Donna L. and Moses, Joel C. (eds.), Political Implications of Economic Reform in Communist Systems (New York: New York University Press, 1990), pp. 109–130Google Scholar; and Lampton, David M., “The roots of interprovincial inequality in education and health services in China,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 73 (1979), pp. 459–477.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. For the need of a hybrid strategy, see Ragin, Charles C., The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 70.Google Scholar Examples of studies based on this hybrid research design include Huang Yasheng, The Politics of Inflation Control in China: Central Investment Control and Provincial Investment Behavior, 1981–89, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Government, Harvard University, 1991; and Jae Ho Chung, The Politics of Policy Implementation in China: Central Control and Provincial Autonomy under Decentralization, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, 1993.

26. Examples include Burns, John P., “Strengthening central CCP control of leadership selection: the 1990 Nomenklatura” The China Quarterly, No. 138 (June 1994), pp. 458–491CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Melanie Manion, “The behavior of middlemen in the cadre retirement policy process,” in Bureaucracy, Politics and Decision Making in Post-Mao China, pp. 216–244; Zang, Xiaowei, “Provincial elite in post-Mao China,” Asian Survey, Vol. 31, No. 6 (June 1991), pp. 512–525CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Li, Cheng and Bachman, David, “Localism, elitism and immobilism: elite formation and social change in post-Mao China,” World Politics, Vol. 42, No. 1 (October 1989), pp. 64–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tong, , “Fiscal reform, elite turnover and central-provincial relations in post-Mao China”; Deb Mills, William, “Leadership change in China's provinces,” Problems of Communism, Vol. 34, No. 3 (May-June 1985), pp. 24—40Google Scholar; Goodman, David S. G., “Provincial Party first secretaries in national politics: a categoric or a political group?” in Goodman, David S. G. (ed.), Groups and Politics in the People's Republic of China (Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press, 1984), pp. 68–82Google Scholar, “Li Jingquan and the south-west region, 1958–1966,” The China Quarterly, No. 81 (March 1981), pp. 66–96, and “The provincial first Party secretaries in the People's Republic of China, 1949–1978: a profile,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 10, No. 1 (January 1980), pp. 39–74; Shambaugh, David L., The Making of a Premier: Zhao Ziyang's Provincial Career (Boulder: Westview, 1984Google Scholar); Solinger, Dorothy J., “Politics in Yunnan Province in the decade of disorder: elite factional strategies and central-local relations,” The China Quarterly, No. 92 (December 1982), pp. 628–662CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parris Chang, “Shanghai and Chinese politics: before and after the Cultural Revolution” and Goodman, David S. G., “The Shanghai connection: Shanghai's role in national politics during the 1970s,” in Christopher, Howe (ed.), Shanghai-Revolution and Development in an Asian Metropolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 66–90 and 125–152Google Scholar; Scalapino, Robert A., “The CCP's provincial secretaries,” Problems of Communism, Vol. 25, No. 4 (July-August 1976), pp. 18–35Google Scholar; Moody, Peter, “Policy and power: the case of T'ao Chu, 1956–66” and Bennett, Gordon, “Military regions and provincial Party secretaries: one outcome of China's Cultural Revolution,” The China Quarterly, No. 54 (April-June 1973), pp. 267–293 and 294–307CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Victor C. Falkenheim, “Provincial leadership in Fukien: 1949–66,” Lynn T. White III. “Leadership in Shanghai, 1959–69” and Parris H. Chang, “Provincial Party leaders’ strategies for survival during the Cultural Revolution,” in Elites in the People's Republic of China, pp. 199–244, 302–77 and 501–39.

27. Lieberthal, Kenneth, Central Documents and Politburo Politics (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Oksenberg, Michel, “Methods of communication within the Chinese bureaucracy,” The China Quarterly, No. 57 (January-March 1974), pp. 1–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Local government and politics in China, 1955–58,” Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (October 1967), pp. 25–48; Chu, Godwin C. and Hsu, Francis L. K., “Integration in China: the post-Mao years,” in Chu, Godwin C. and Hsu, Francis L. K. (eds.), China's New Social Fabric (London: Kegan Paul International, 1983), pp. 251–286Google Scholar; Schoenhals, Michael, “Elite information in China,” Problems of Communism, Vol. 34, No. 5, (September-October 1985), pp. 65–71Google Scholar; and Hood, Marlowe, “The use and abuse of mass media by Chinese leaders during the 1980s,” in Chin-Chuan, Lee (ed.), China's Media, Media's China (Boulder: Westview, 1994), pp. 37–57.Google Scholar

28. For studies on budgetary and fiscal dimensions, see n. 10. Also see Wong, Christine P. W., “Material allocation and decentralization: impact of the local sector on industrial reform,” in Elizabeth, Perry and Wong, Christine P. W. (eds.), The Political Economy of Reform in Post-Mao China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 253–281CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lardy, Nicholas R., “Dilemmas in the pattern of resource allocation in China, 1978–1985,” in Victor, Nee and David, Stark (eds.), Remaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism: China and Eastern Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), pp. 278–305.Google Scholar

29. These radical measures included, to name only the principal ones: turning over to the provinces 88% of the state enterprises (amounting to 8,100 out of a total of 9,300) formerly under central control; transferring to the provinces decision-making power as to projects on basic construction investment (jiben jianshe touzi): and rearranging the system of budgetary sharing to allow larger provincial autonomy. For details of these short-lived changes, see Dangdai Zhongguo de caizheng (Contemporary China's Finance) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1988), Vol. 1, pp. 156–173.

30. For various symptoms described above as they relate to the “walking on two legs” policy, the communication policy and the “deep ploughing” policy, see Chan, “The campaign for agricultural development in the Great Leap Forward,” pp. 54—55,70; Teiwes, “Provincial politics,” p. 172; and Stavis, Benedict A., The Politics of Agricultural Mechanization in China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), p. 121.Google Scholar

31. See Dali Yang, “Reform and the restructuring of central-local relations”; Wang Shaoguang, “Central-local fiscal politics in China’ in Jia Hao and Lin Zhimin, Changing Central-Local Relations in China, pp. 91–112; Shirk, The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China, chs. 9–13; Wong, “Central-local relations in an era of fiscal decline”; and Huang, The Politics of Inflation Control and Provincial Investment Behavior.

32. See Grindle, Merrilee S. (ed.), Politics and Policy Implementation in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Edwards, George C. III (ed.), Public Policy Implementation (Greenwich: JAI Press, 1984Google Scholar); and Palumbo, Dennis J. and Calista, Donald J. (eds.), Implementation and the Policy Process: Opening up the Black Box (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990).Google Scholar

33. For the desirability of multiple-case designs in implementation studies, see Yin, Robert K., “Studying the implementation of public programs,” in Williams, Walteret al., Studying Implementation: Methodological and Administrative Issues (Chatham: Chatham House, 1982), pp. 50, 55.Google Scholar For studies exploring interprovincial variation in implementing central policy, see Teiwes, “Provincial politics in China”; Goodman, Centre and Province in the People's Republic of China; contributions by Solinger and Zweig in Policy Implementation in Post-Mao China; Huang, The Politics of Inflation Control and Provincial Investment Behavior, and Chung, The Politics of Policy Implementation in Post-Mao China.

34. See, for instance, Durasoff, Douglas, “Conflicts between economic decentralization and political control in the domestic reform of Soviet and post-Soviet systems,” Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 388–89.Google Scholar

35. Wong, “Central-local relations in an era of fiscal decline,” p. 701; and Contemporary China's Finance, Vol. 1, pp. 309–311.

36. See Contemporary China's Finance, Vol. 1, p. 311; Wong, “Central-local relations in an era of fiscal decline,” p. 701; and Xinzhong, Song, Zhongguo caizheng tizhi gaige yanjiu (Study of China's Fiscal Reform) (Beijing: Zhongguo caizheng jingji chubanshe 1992), p. 64.Google Scholar For the case of Guangdong, see Peter Tsan-yin Cheung, “The evolving relations between the center and Guangdong in die reform era,” in Jia Hao and Lin Zhimin, Changing Central-Local Relations in China, pp. 226–27. For a detailed analysis of the 1994 fenshuizhi reform, see Chung, “Beijing confronting the provinces.”

37. As a matter of fact, serious scholarly attention must be given to this information dimension of central-local dynamics, especially with regard to the centre's monitoring capacity. For a few studies on this issue, see Nina P. Halpern, “Information flows and policy coordination in the Chinese bureaucracy,” in Lieberthal and Lampton, Bureaucracy, Politics and Decision Making in Post-Mao China, pp. 125–148; and Eftimiades, Nicholas, Chinese Intelligence Operations (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994Google Scholar), ch. 6. The staff size of China's State Statistical Bureau increased from 46 in 1976 to 280 in 1981, to 580 in 1988 and to more than 1,000 in 1994. See Huang, Yasheng, “Information, bureaucracy, and economic reforms in China and the Soviet Union,” World Politics, Vol. 47, No. 1 (October 1994), pp. 127–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and South China Morning Post, 28 October 1994 for the 1994 figure. For critical reports on the centre's capacity of information control, see Renmin ribao (People's Daily), 17 August 1994 and China Daily, 11 September 1994.

38. The recent reshuffle of Jiangsu's provincial leadership is a good example, since the transfer of its provincial Party secretary, Shen Daren, is attributed to his staunch opposition to the “tax-sharing” reform. See South China Morning Post, 8 December 1993. Since the transfer of Shen, Jiangsu has been relatively cautious in expressing its views on the new policy. See the views of Jiangsu's new Party secretary, Chen Huanyou, in Ming bao, 12 March 1994. For a view that discounts Beijing's authority in personnel appointments for provinces (especially the rich ones like Guangdong), see Bums, “Strengthening central CCP control of leadership selection,” pp. 470–74. Policy mechanisms are becoming increasingly important as more localities seek for more preferential and special policies. The central government, as the sole provider of such policies, can reward or punish the provinces with the designation or withdrawal of these selective incentives.

39. See Rhodes, R. A., “Power dependence theories of central–local relations: a critical assessment,” in Goldsmith, Michael J. (ed.), New Research in Central–Local Relations (Aldershot: Gower, 1986), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

40. See Stephenson, Max O. Jr. and Pops, Gerald M., “Conflict resolution methods and the policy process,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 49, No. 5 (September-October 1989), p. 467CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Toole and Montjoy, “Interorganizational policy implementation,” p. 492; and Hoogland Dehoog, Ruth, “Competition, negotiation, or cooperation? Three alternative models for contracting for services,” in Mills, Miriam K. (ed.). Conflict Resolution and Public Policy (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), pp. 155–176.Google Scholar

41. See Susan Barrett and Michael Hill, “Policy, bargaining and structure in implementation,” in Goldsmith, New Research in Central-Local Relations, pp. 50–52.

42. Brian W. Hogwood and Lewis A. Gunn, Policy Analysis for the Real World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 206, 213–14; and Merilee S. Grindle, “Policy content and context in implementation,” in Grindle, Politics and Policy Implementation in the Third World, p. 9.

43. An example of the former is the “central economic cities” (jihua danlie shi) policy and an example of the latter is the “one-child” policy (from a post-Mao perspective, this policy is more routinized than radical). See, respectively, Schroeder, “Territorial actors as competitors for power: the case of Hubei and Wuhan” and White, Tyrene, “Postrevolutionary mobilization in China: the one-child policy reconsidered,” World Politics, Vol. 43, No. 1 (October 1990), pp. 53–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. See, respectively, Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China, ch. 6; Chung, “Beijing confronting the provinces”; and Barrett L. McCormick, “Leninist implementation: the election campaign,” in Lampton, Policy Implementation in Post-Mao China, pp. 383–413.

45. See, for instance, Sabatier, Paul A., ‘Top-down and bottom-up approaches to implementation research: a critical analysis and suggested synthesis,” Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 6 (1986), pp. 21–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46. See Goldborough, James O., “California's foreign policy,” Foreign Affairs (Spring 1993), pp. 88–96Google Scholar; and Alger, Chadwick F., “Perceiving, analyzing and coping with the local-global nexus” and Kovacs, Illona, “Local influences on international relations in Hungary,” in International Social Science Journal, No. 117 (August 1988), pp. 321–340 and 399–406.Google Scholar For China-specific studies that touch upon these aspects, see Mackerras, Colin, China's Minorities: Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994Google Scholar), ch. 7; contributions by Brantly Womack and Guangzhi Zhao, Michael B. Yahuda, Peter Ferdinand and Ingrid d'Hooghe in Goodman and Segal, China Deconstructs; Segal, China Changes Shape; Zhang Amei and Zou Gang, “Foreign trade decentralization and its impact on central-local relations,” in Jia Hao and Lin Zhimin, Changing Central-Local Relations in China, pp. 153–177; Lilian C. Harris, “Xinjiang, Central Asia and the implications for China's policy in the Islamic World” and Christoffersen, Gaye, “Xinjiang and the Great Islamic Circle” in The China Quarterly, No. 133 (March 1993), pp. 111–151Google Scholar; Kleinberg, Robert, China's “Opening ” to the Outside World: The Experiment with Foreign Capitalism (Boulder: Westview, 1990), pp. 137–141Google Scholar; Ho Chung, Jae, “Sino-South Korean economic cooperation: an analysis of domestic and foreign entanglements,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer 1990), pp. 66–68Google Scholar; Woetzel, Jonathan R., China's Economic Opening to the Outside World: The Politics of Empowerment (New York: Praeger, 1989), pp. 142–43Google Scholar; and Shirk, Susan, “The domestic political dimensions of China's foreign economic relations,” in Kim, Samuel S. (ed.), China and the World: Chinese Foreign Policy in the Post-Mao Era (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984), pp. 60–64.Google Scholar For foreign-policy studies touching upon the possibility of China's disintegration, see Harding, Harry, A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China since 1972. (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1992), pp. 305–307Google Scholar; Huan, Guocang, “Whither China?” The Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Fall 1992), pp. 99–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bernstein, Thomas P., “Thoughts about changing emphases in U.S. perceptions of China's domestic situation: from human rights to state capacity?” paper presented to the conference on “U.S. China Relations” sponsored by the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, Beijing, 10–12 August 1994.Google Scholar

47. As post-Mao reform measures have largely been biased against non-coastal regions, high levels of discontent prevailed among inland provinces. As a consequence, new regional blocs like the Regional Economic Co-ordination Association of Southwest China, the North-east Economic and Technological Association, and the North-west Economic Cooperative Council were formed after the mid-1980s. These organizations struggle to obtain as many preferential policies from Beijing as possible to cope with their economic problems. On this issue, see Zheng, Yong-Nian, “Perforated sovereignty: provincial dynamism and China's foreign trade,“ The Pacific Review, Vol 7, No. 3 (1994), pp. 316–320CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and South China Morning Post, 20 May and 23 August 1994. A series of annual meetings held among the 14 (reduced to six in 1994) “central economic cities” were also designed to devise concrete strategies to deal with the centre on a collective basis. For this information, I am indebted to Dorothy Solinger, “Decentralization in Wuhan” (draft), prepared for the “Decentralization in China” project of the World Bank, September 1994, p. 15.

48. The emergence of cities and counties necessitates a close examination of their relations with the provinces and the centre (in the cases of special economic zones and central economic cities). For studies on sub-provincial units, see Howell, Jude, China Opens Its Doors: The Politics of Economic Transition (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1993Google Scholar); Zweig, David, “Internationalizing China's countryside: the political economy of exports from rural industry,” The China Quarterly, No. 128 (December 1992), pp. 716–741Google Scholar; Schroeder, ‘Territorial actors as competitors for power”; Solinger, Dorothy J., “City, province and region: the case of Wuhan,” in Reynolds, Bruce L. (ed.), Chinese Economic Policy (New York: Paragon, 1988), pp. 233–284Google Scholar, and “The place of the central city in China's economic reform: from hierarchy to network?” in China's Transition from Socialism: Statist Legacies and Market Reforms 1980–1990 (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), pp. 205–222.

49. The increasing availability of various documentary and statistical materials on sub-provincial units as well as county gazettes (xianzhi) facilitates research on sub-provincial politics and intra-provincial variation. Now, one can adopt a sort of “layered methodology” to explore political and policy issues at the provincial, prefectural, and county levels and below. See, for instance, Marc Blecher and Shaoguang, Wang, “The political economy of cropping in Maoist and Dengist China: Hebei province and Shulu county, 1949–90,” The China Quarterly, No. 137 (March 1994), pp. 63–98.Google Scholar