Running head: LOCAL AUTONOMY AND CENTRAL CONTROL IN CHINA 1

Local Autonomy and Central Control in China

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Local Autonomy

This was a mechanism to allow local people to claim a distinct identity of exercising

direct control at their own will over affairs of particular interest to them. It was thus a type of

self-governance and rule-based arrangement.

Local autonomy was adopted in China due to its vast size and the significant imbalance

of natural conditions and socio-economic development levels. Therefore, local autonomy

revealed different performance and extents. The Chinese traditional culture of a united land

under heaven formed a foundation for cultural identity and national cohesion thus the system was

adopted to strengthen the imperial authority.

From 1978, China economy transited in the process of marketization. The local autonomy

system was thus adopted to liberalize the economy. The communist party also took a policy of

multiparty cooperation and consultation to decentralize politics and institutions.

Therefore, the local autonomy system generally aimed at initiating responsibility system

whereby households were allowed to contract land, machinery and other facilities from

collective organizations. This suited the nature of agriculture and the development of productive

forces in rural areas. The system also incorporated a National Supervisory Commission as the

highest anti-corruption agency aimed at curbing local interference in anti-corruption efforts.

Central Control

This is a government system which practices supreme power in a unitary state. This

regime introduced the commune system where the largest collective units were divided into

production brigades and production teams. It allowed the workers to share local welfare and it
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was a step used by Mao Zedong to fulfill the goal of surpassing the United Kingdom and the

United States regarding steel production.

The regime also incorporated the Hukou System which was a tool that would ensure the

implementation of the communist political, social and economic objectives from 1949. The

Hukou is a system of population registration whereby people are identified either as rural or

urban dwellers. It is a family registration program serving as a domestic passport to regulate

population distribution and rural-to-urban migration. It, therefore, enforces an apartheid structure

on farmers denying them the benefits and rights enjoyed by the urban residents. The system

aimed at controlling population movement which consequently led to division of the Chinese

society into two classes: the urban residents and the rural residents. However, from 1950 the

system was used to implement agricultural collectivism in rural areas. It enabled farmers to

become part of the production unit and funded housing, education, and healthcare to the urban

dwellers. The system has been described as the “secret recipe” of economic prosperity due to its

unprecedented commercial success.

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Reference

Wei, D. (2009). Local Autonomy in the Context of Chinese Political Modernization. One
Country, Two Systems, Three Legal Orders-Perspectives of Evolution, 583.

Chŏng, C. H., Chon̆g, C. H., & Chung, J. H. (2000). Central control and local discretion in
China: Leadership and implementation during Post-Mao decollectivization. Oxford
University Press on Demand.

Young, J. (2013). China’s Hukou System. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 10,

9781137277312.