Political Science Analysis Of China's Reform Of The Customs

Customs is both economic gate and political gate of a modern state. With China’s reform and opening up since the late1970s, China Customs has gone through comprehensive and profound reform. It has rebuilt "autonomous" vertical mechanism, reshaped "rational" bureaucracy system, and reconstructed exterior relations with local government, foreign trade market, and international society. As the consequence, Customs’duty and tax have grown annually, and its extractive capacity has been improved continuously.State autonomy is the fundamental characteristic of modern state. State-building involves maintaining the state’s will independent and public (neutral), and strengthening state capacity. With the state autonomy theory, this dissertation tends to study the China Customs reform in the past more than thirty years from a macroscopic perspective, explores its political logic, and attempts to answer its political origin, main contents, and the constraints of Customs duty and tax growth.With institutional and historical analysis methods, the dissertation studies the interior and exterior reform of China Customs, and includes seven parts as follows. Chapter1, narrates research questions and their significance, the meaning of state autonomy, the relationship between state will and state capacity, and research idea, etc; Chapter2, analyzes that totalitarian regime and local management mechanism have resulted in capture of state will by extreme leftist and local government, weak state capacity and low state autonomy before reform. And with the reform, China Customs has adjusted interior institutions and functions, formulated modernization development strategy, implemented comparative advantage and export-oriented strategy, and rebuilt "autonomous" vertical mechanism. Chapter3, analyzes that China Customs has devoted to reshaping a "rational" team which is loyal only to state interest, and "autonomous and integrity" Customs officials who are insulated from being captured and predatory. Chapter4analyzes the relationship between Customs and local government. After reform of decentralization, Chinese local government autonomy has been activated, local government interest groups have gradually come into being, and some local governments are even involved in smuggling. Under fiscal federalism, special Customs supervision zones maintain the balance of Customs and local government. It encourages foreign trade and competition so as to improve the local government’s initiation, and at the same time combats with smuggling through centralization. Chapter5analyzes the relationship between Customs and foreign trade market. Through gradual reform, China Customs brings the market back in. Then Customs management transits from government to governance.In order to prosper foreign trade market and form "strong Customs, strong market" mode, China Customs guides and intervenes in market by duty reduction or exemption, intellectual property protection, and Customs procedure simplification, etc. Chapter6analyzes Customs’internationalization. Compared with the idea of isolation from globalization and international society before reform, China Customs accessed to World Customs Organization, World Trade Organization, Asia Pacific Economic Co-Operation Organization, and other international organization, integrated actively into globalization, safeguarded state sovereignty, transferred from accepter to constitutor of international institution, improved gradually state capacity within international exchange, and strengthened state autonomy in international level. The last part is question-answering and conclusion-making.The dissertation believes that state autonomy is the independent variable of China Customs successful reform. Firstly, centralized Customs’ decision-making mechanism is advantageous for insulating from pressure of interest groups and avoiding possible capture under decentralized mechanism like U.S.A.; China Customs reforms cadre system, and reshaped "autonomous and integrity" bureaucracy by "rational" criteria. China Customs’bureaucracy system maintains effectively state will transcendent and public. Secondly, China Customs abandoned zero-sums thinking, and reconstructed coexistence and co-prosperity relationship among local government, foreign trade market and international society. China Customs changed import substitution strategy and implemented comparative advantage and export oriented strategy, and optimized governance. State will returns gradually to neutrality, and state capacity continuously strengthens. Thirdly, China Customs integrated into globalization and safeguarded state sovereignty, which avoided East-Asia model countries’ tragedy, enhanced penetration capacity to international institution, and gradually strengthen state antonomy in the field of international affairs.As we known, China Customs reform is not a termination, but a dynamic process. The future of China Customs is determined to a great degree by three elements. The first is whether its officials are prevented from being captured or predatory. The second is whether China Customs will optimize its governance mechanism to enhance administration capacity. The third is whether China Customs will maintain the autonomy of local government, foreign trade market and international society, and optimize relationship and keep dynamic balance among them, and then strengthen state capacity.The practice of China Customs reform illustrates that autonomous state is indispensable for economic growth, especially for those post-modernization states. State-building needs strong state. Captured state, predatory state and weak capacity state, which are all so-called "failed state", are not only useless for economic growth, but also ineffective to state-building.