SHENZHEN will streamline government institutions by more than 30 percent by the end of October, officially launching China’s first administrative structural reform which is being called an experiment in “the separation of powers.”
The reform, unveiled at a government meeting chaired by Party chief Liu Yupu on Friday, will separate the functions of the Shenzhen government into three areas – decision making, execution and supervision.
The changes were listed as a top priority in an overall comprehensive reform program for Shenzhen, which was approved by the State Council in May.
The approval means Shenzhen is the country’s third overall reform pilot zone after the Binhai New Area in Tianjin and the Pudong New Area in Shanghai.
Administrative reform is considered the most challenging and most important aspect of the ambitious program. If successful, it could herald a nationwide reform of the political system.
The plan is intended to streamline an overlapping array of government agencies, with 46 departments to be incorporated into 31. The reshuffle excluded seven departments at bureau level — public security, education, civil affairs, justice, auditing, checkpoints and Taiwan affairs.
Seven “policymaking commissions” under the mayor will be created around core issues such as development and reform, science and trade, finance, urban planning and State land resources, traffic, hygiene and birth control, and the environment. Under the commissions, there are “policy execution” bureaus.
The reform will help the government run more efficiently and will also play a positive role in checking each branch to keep the government clean, Acting Mayor Wang Rong said.
All these changes would work toward making Shenzhen a public service-oriented government by 2013 –seven years earlier than the nation had expected, said Liu.
Dividing the administrative function in Shenzhen into three parts would be a first for China in terms of government reforms, but was in line with the systems used in Hong Kong and Singapore, Le Zheng, director of the Shenzhen Academy of Social Sciences, said.
As China’s first Special Economic Zone and the first city to implement a policy of reform and opening up, Shenzhen was well suited as a test ground for this new form of administrative structure, Le said.
Ding Li, a section chief of the provincial academy of social sciences, said the reform was “exciting.”
“But if the plan continues, resistance from personnel arrangements could block the plan’s practice,” he said. “I hope that won’t dampen the government’s resolution.”
The idea for the reform was first tabled in 2003, when authorities said during the Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress they wanted Shenzhen to be the only city in China to test it.
The plan was not implemented at that time, however, as it was too difficult to separate the departments and involved too many personnel changes, Du Gangjian, from Shenzhen University and one of the drafters of the initial plan, was quoted as saying by Chinese-language newspapers.
In China, historically and at present, a government department is normally the policymaker, executor and supervisor in its jurisdiction. But some say this is a major cause of red tape, abuse of power and a lack of transparency and oversight.
From this perspective, any reform that separates administrative powers would bring fundamental changes to the system of government – but it is by no means expected to lead to democratization.
(Claudia Wei)