Economic Freedom and Political Control in Post-Mao China: A Perspective of Upward Accountability and Asymmetric Decentralization

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

With post-Mao China as a case study, this article aims to examine the political economyof asymmetric decentralization in relation to development at the national, regional(inter-local) and local levels. Economically, sub-national governments have been grantedgreater autonomy with huge decentralized fiscal and administrative powers andcompetencies. Politically, however, China is still a state under Communist Partydomination. Local officials are not elected locally but are assigned by the party. Thisphenomenon of ‘economic decentralization to the local’ along with ‘political centralizationunder the party’ is described as ‘asymmetric decentralization’. The mechanismbehind asymmetric decentralization is upward accountability*the greater the economicgrowth, the better chances there are for local leaders to receive political promotions,administrative power and many tangible and intangible perks. The article furtherdiscusses six Janus-faced consequences of asymmetric decentralization, which can begrouped into three pairs of administrative levels: (1) at the national level*positive forrelative national economic stability but negative for uneven development across thecountry; (2) at the regional (inter-local) level*bad for inter-local fragmentation butgood for cross-regional cadre transfer; and (3) at the local level*where local policyinnovation is a strength but local unsustainable development is a weakness. Theseconsequences, which look contradictory or incompatible on the surface, can be betterunderstood through the analytic framework of ‘asymmetric decentralization withupward accountability’.

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