From a comparative perspective, the People’s Republic of China represents perhaps the world’s most distinctive combination of political centralization and fiscal and administrative decentralization. The basic unity of the state, referred to as Dayitong (大一统), has long been seen as the organizing principle of governance in mainland China and underpins the modern system whereby decision- making is tightly concentrated at the central government level (Wang 2009). At the same time, however, the practical challenges of governing a large and diverse territory have historically led Chinese officials to delegate substantial administrative powers to subnational levels of government. Moreover, in economic terms China is one of the most decentralized countries in the world, with revenue and expenditure powers largely in the hands of local officials (Dziobek, Mangas, and Kufa 2011). Chinese officials are thus caught in an institutional matrix known as tiao-kuai (条- 块), in which they are responsible both to line control by functional bureaucracies, such as the various central government ministries, as well as to territorial government leaders, including mayors and provincial governors, and to equivalent officials within the parallel Chinese Communist Party (CCP) structure. The CCP effectively controls all important political appointments, creating a potent mechanism to ensure the coherence of central and local policy objectives (Mertha 2008). This matrix is intended to ensure that subnational officials pursue priorities set by the central government but also to provide them with the flexibility to implement these policies according to individual local circumstances. In practical terms, this flexibility also translates into autonomy in a wide range of policy areas, including water resource management. Like their counterparts in more politically decentralized countries, China’s subnational officials therefore also confront the dilemma of autonomy, and they sometimes attempt to resolve it through conflict with neighboring jurisdictions (Moore 2014a).
The Role of Local Governments in Driving High-Quality Growth in the People’s Republic of China