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Simply put, the so-called super ministry system will combine government departments with similar functions into one larger entity, reducing the number of government departments as a whole. The plan aims to streamline the ministries under the State Council, broadening their functions but diminishing their number, to eliminate the problems of overlapping functions, limited performance and low efficiency.
China has the world's longest history of a bureaucratic system. But the overlapping structures, indefinite functions and inflated organizations, coupled with the habits of shifting responsibility onto others, being slack and negligent, have plagued the system from antiquity.
In certain dynasties, those who designed the bureaucracy intentionally built needless duplication into the system, so that different divisions were given ill-defined and similar functions, in an effort to prevent any one group from monopolizing power. The obvious result of this would be to decrease efficiency to the lowest level.
Nevertheless, a big problem remained -- each department could still operate within the range of its power for its own interests. Each department could aggressively pursue its own benefits while passing troubling responsibilities on to other departments. At the same time, they would justify their actions by claiming they needed a bigger organization and broader sphere of authority.
In reality, the more departments the government has, the more idle the officials -- and the more serious the corruption.
Certainly many insightful people have tried to reform this abuse of the bureaucracy since ancient times. Almost all the reforms in Chinese history included downsizing of governmental organizations. Actually, the Chinese Communist Party has long been aware of this issue. During the war against Japan, party policy was "better staff and simpler administration." This allowed the troops to strengthen their fighting ability and survive during the severe challenges of battle.
However, after the new China was built, this kind of policy no longer worked. This was because China was strongly influenced by the Soviet Union, which had the most heavy and complicated bureaucratic system, and combined malpractices from the West and the East. China's repeated efforts to simplify the bureaucracy brought unsatisfactory results. A vicious circle was generated -- expansion followed by downsizing, then another round of expansion and another of downsizing.
It seemed that the more the efforts to simplify the bureaucracy, the more it ended up expanded and inflated. Some local governments adopted the attitude that whenever the higher authorities spoke of "simplifying" the organization, they would prepare more desks and chairs to accommodate more offices and more staff.
The current effort to create super ministries resembles this same pattern -- but surely the leaders have taken into account the risks of following the same old road to ruin. It has been suggested that the solution to China's bureaucratic problem is to transform the role of the government from one of controlling society to one of serving society.
If the government can truly transform its operations through this latest measure, then the vicious circle of expansion and downsizing could possibly be brought to an end. This would be an admirable development.
However, transforming the functions of government is never an easy task. Controlling and serving often cannot be easily distinguished. A government department may think it is providing a service, while the people being served may feel it is exerting too much control.
Historical observation shows that administrations tend to desire expansion, as they must handle a myriad of social and political affairs, dealing with personnel, money and state resources. Without a strong counterforce to limit the administrative sector, it will naturally expand its authority, power and organization, until the people may feel it misuses its power.
Therefore, establishing a means of restricting bureaucratic power is necessary. The government should not attempt to take control over all affairs; it must control the inflation of the administration. To be effective, the super ministry system should lead to a smaller government.
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(Zhang Ming is a professor and supervisor of doctoral students at the School of International Relations at People's University in Beijing. He has a PhD in politics, and is the former dean of the Politics Department at People's University. His research focuses on China's systems, agricultural policies and social culture. This article is translated and edited from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online. The original may be found at www.ncn.org and zhangming.vip.bokee.com ©Copyright Zhang Ming.)
