Abstract
Public administration is a government’s main tool for fulfilling the internal and external needs of the country it serves. The public administrative system which China developed after the Chinese Communist Party came to power was, by the 1980s, insufficient for meeting the needs that arose in conjunction with the country’s rapid economic development and social and economic problems. Since the 1980s, the government has introduced seven administrative reform programmes which involve decentralizing governance, reducing or expanding the government in relation to circumstances, and organizational restructuring. This chapter investigates China’s administrative system in an effort to understand the development during the era of economic reform since 1980, and the factors which have challenged the success of the reforms. It reviews these challenges and discusses the prospects for future reforms.
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- 1.
In international affairs, the People’s Republic of China claims to represent all of China. In economic affairs, it operates according to the principle of ‘one country, two systems’. While mainland China has a socialist system, Hong Kong, Macau practice a capitalist system. Taiwan also has a capitalist system.
- 2.
‘Opening up’ refers for the most part to opening the country up to foreign investment, international trade, and certain elements of a market-based economy. Before ‘reform and opening up’, China’s economy was close to collapse due to several decades of political campaigns and class conflicts. The situation was also partly due to the implementation of a planned economy since 1949, when Chinese Communist Party came to power and established the People’s Republic of China.
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Baskaran, S., Ihjas, M.M. (2019). The Development of Public Administration in the People’s Republic of China: An Analysis of Administrative Reform. In: Jamil, I., Dhakal, T., Paudel, N. (eds) Civil Service Management and Administrative Systems in South Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90191-6_14
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