Adversity and crisis helps strengthen government system

Although delayed because of the pandemic, when the two sessions－big annual political meeting－did get under way, the national self-confidence on display was a potent symbol of the strength of China's government's system.

The Government Work Report, which was delivered on the opening day of the National People's Congress, China's top legislative body, firmly demonstrated that China had a fully worked-out plan in place to deal with the crisis.

It showed also that the government had no intention of being blown off course from meeting its development targets－becoming a moderately prosperous society and eliminating extreme poverty－in time for the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Communist Party of China next year.

On any sort of international comparison matrix China has performed well in the pandemic.

Yet, in a dynamic system like China's, there is no room for complacency. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, made this clear late last year.

"What we need to do now is to advance the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance," he says.

A program of national governance modernization was set in place at the Fourth Plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in October.

The aim is to improve governance in a number of areas, including streamlining the government structure, the greater effectiveness of the rule of law, providing more of a social security safety net and making government more people-centric.

Ma Liang, professor of public policy at the National Academy of Development and Strategy at Renmin University of China in Beijing and who has written extensively on government modernization, says responding to people's needs is one of the big challenges.

"Local officials have to deal with pressures from above and complaints from citizens below. In the past, they might have paid more attention to the first. The government has been trying to address this for some time," he told me recently .

One of the debates in China in recent years has been whether the interests of State-owned industries have been prioritized over their private counterparts.

Edward Tse, founder and CEO of Gao Feng Advisory, a management consultancy, believes that how the State and the private sector works together is one of the strengths of China's government system.

"(It) has evolved into a unique model with the central government giving State direction at the top, a private sector delivering incredible innovation at the bottom and then in between local government playing an enabling role. I can't think of any country like this and it is very effective."

The success of this model is manifest in the country's economic performance, transforming China from a largely agrarian economy at the time of reform and opening-up in the late-1970s to the world's second-largest economy.

The national governance modernization program acknowledges this needs to be kept up if China is to meet important goals later this century.

These include becoming a global technology leader by 2035 and a "great modern socialist country" by 2049 in time for the 100th anniversary of the PRC.

Xi has also emphasized the importance of technology in delivering government services to the people.

How technology has been used during the pandemic has already been way ahead of that of many countries.

In future there is going to be much greater use of blockchain technologies, which allow crypto currency transactions, big data and the utilization of artificial intelligence in the way citizens interact with the government.

"There is a double benefit to this. Not only do you deliver government services better but also because the government sector is 40 percent of the economy, it provides a major boost to China's technology industries," adds Ma.

It was stressed at the recent plenum that the Party in playing a coordinating role was central to national governance modernization.

Ciqi Mei, an associate professor at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, says it will have a central role in modernizing the whole system.

"The Party's leadership is one of the core principles of the People's Republic of China. It is the single most important factor for China's development over the past 40 years and, indeed, over the past 70. What is being reaffirmed is that we are going to stick to this principle," he says.

There can be no doubt the pandemic has been an enormous setback but China's government system is set to emerge stronger from it, not just because of the modernization program already in place, but also due to a renewed national determination that has been on display in Beijing at the two sessions.