Objectives, Conditions And Path:Study On The Reform On The"County Directly Under The Jurisdiction Of Province"

Since the1990s, the reform on the "County Directly Under the Jurisdiction of Province", composed of a series of reforms like "Expanding the Strong County’s Power","Strengthening Counties by Expanding Counties’Power" and "Province Directly Managing County in the Fiscal Sector", has been carried out by Zhejiang province and some other provinces. From2005till now, the Chinese central government has promulgated multiple codes concerning this reform. Since2010, the State Commission Office for Public Sector Reform has selected eight provinces as the pilot areas, and officially launched the reform on "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" in the administrative system. It is safe to say the reform on "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" has played an important part in the local government reform in China. Concerning for and studying on this issue is an urgent task with long-term significance.Instead of a simple alternative to the "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of City" system, the "County Directly Under the Jurisdiction of Province" system is not to form a new affiliation in the longitudinal intergovernmental relations, but to dilute the belonging sense of power and to establish the concept of "domain" according to the objective laws of the Market Economy. Hence, by means of rationalizing the relationships between government and society, country and market, administrative region and economic region, the horizontal governments and longitudinal governments, a regional governance system characterized by "domain in place of affiliation" and "governance needs determining responsibilities" will be constructed.The "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" system is generally running well in most pilot areas of the country, but problems still exist. For example, in Shunde District of Guangdong Province, the county economy even appeared signs of depression after implementing this system. It shows that the "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" system is not suitable for all regions, and there is not a universally applicable mode in the longitudinal relations. The reform on "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" calls for certain bases and conditions. The bases include necessary economic foundation, limited government responsibility and effective range of management. The conditions include the degree of relativity between cities and counties, the urban economic strength, the level of the county’s economy development, overall plan and coordination capacity of provincial government, geographical space conditions, population and distribution density, transportation and IT conditions, ability of managers, the degree of social autonomy, reform consensus and policy support, and so on.The reform on "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" is still in the exploratory stage. As this reform deepens, various institutional mechanism issues brought about by the reform will be gradually revealed. Whether or not the issues can be effectively solved to pave the way for the reform is decisive to the success of the entire reform. Currently, the bottlenecks frequently encountered in the reform practice result from the "zoning-oriented" reform concept. According to this concept, the problem that regional economic development suffers from the administrative barrier can only be solved through adjusting the administrative divisions and changing the affiliation. In the short term, the "zoning-oriented" reform facilitates the economic development free from the fetters of administrative region. In the long run, however, administrative region will never meet the demand for the expansion of economic development as the economic region constantly expands in the market economy. If we couldn’t go beyond the "zoning-oriented" reform concept, the reform from "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of City" to "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" would be a temporary means, and the reform will eventually fall into a strange cycle in which the administrative levels are repeatedly adjusted. Since the reform on "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" is a systematic project, it is far from enough to consider the issues only from the zoning angle. The substantial breakthrough and progress of this reform relies on a series of supporting reforms. Therefore, we should go beyond the "zoning-oriented" concept and solve the problems by reshaping the structure of interests among the local governments, surpassing the relationship between the "level" and "power", reconstructing the local government system, rationalizing the relationship between the vertical management departments and local governments, and innovating the supervisory system.Currently, some misconceptions need to be clarified in the practice of the "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" reform; otherwise the reform will be led astray. For example,"Province Directly Managing County in the Fiscal Sector" and "Province Directly Managing County in the Administrative System" should be pushed forward simultaneously, and empowerment to the county should be temperate and limited. Such measures should be taken as cautiously adjusting the level of county and county head as well as the administrative divisions and affilation, objectively examining the experience of the pilot, avoiding setting a "timetable", and keeping the "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" and "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of City" coexistent. As the "County Directly under the Jurisdiction of Province" reform is deepened, the supporting reforms will be initiated at the due time, including those of accelerating the transformation of government functions, rationalizing the relationship between the financial power and government responsibility among local governments, pushing forward the Tax System Reform between provincial governments and local governments, and starting the City System Reform and the County System Reform.