Study Of The Functional Transformation Of The Local Governments And Revival Of The Old Industrial Base Of Northeast China

Northeast China is one of the regions of our country deepest influenced by the planned economic system, with the lowest degree of general adoption of the market principle. The system barrier is the fundamental reasons for decline of the old industrial base of Northeast China. The key to revival of the old industrial base of Northeast China is the deepening of the reform and transformation of governmental functions. However, most of the achievements are centralized in analysis of definition of criteria of conduct of what the local governments of Northeast China shall do and shall not do, there is lack of the convincing explanations to the internal reasons for the backward functional transformation of the local governments in Northeast China and let alone the discussion of the methods of resolving the relevant problems by starting from the deep-going analysis of the reasons for the problems. Although there have been a lot of documents of discussion on the transformation of the governmental functions, acceleration of establishment of the legal and service governments in the process of implementing the strategy of revival of the old industrial base of Northeast China by now, there are, in fact, many problems that are not theoretically resolved. In the perspective of the regional economics and system economics and according to the analysis train of thoughts that the system determines behavior, the details of the general and special reasons for the slow functional transformation of the local governments in the old industrial base of Northeast China are analyzed, the important roles that the functional transformation of the governments plays in implementing the strategy of revival of the old industrial base of Northeast China are discussed and the strategies and suggestions on accelerating the functional transformation of the local governments in Northeast China and promoting the revival of the old industrial are presented on the basis in this paper.The theory of governmental functions can be divided into"liberalism"and"doctrine of governmental intervention". The theory of governmental functions of"liberalism"thinks that a government is a necessary evil, it's better that there is no one and let human beings thoroughly free, but it is necessary, the government shall not absolutely or directly be engaged in some microscopic activities of management of enterprises, etc. and the government shall actively do what the public are reluctant to do or do not do well. The theory of the doctrine of"governmental intervention"thinks that the government shall provide the public articles that the public consume and the enterprises cannot produce in the market, it shall overcome the incompletion of externality and market, it shall undertake the function of economic forecasting, formulate the industrial policy and develop the scale economy and it shall resolve the unequal problems in distribution. What deserves our attention is that any theory is the product in a certain historical background; therefore, the social reality at that time shall not be ignored when the evaluation of it is made. And in the actual social economic life, we say that the market is incomplete and the governmental roles are also incomplete, so can the rapid development of the social economy be promoted truly only when the strength and modes of the governmental intervention are correctly grasped.There are the general reasons existing in the regions all over the country and the special reasons for the slow functional transformation of the local governments in Northeast China. Since the reform and opening, great changes have occurred to the modes and detailed policies of the local governments of our country managing the social economic life, but on the whole, there is a huge gap between the degree and speed of the changes and what people expect. The true reasons are mainly the problems of the governing structure and behavioral trend of the local governments of our country inapplicable to the market economy. The governing structure of the local governments of our country is, in essence, the one of"trust-agency relationship of multiple missions". Such a governing structure promotes the behavioral trend of the local governments showing their achievements to the upper level and giving paramountcy to economic growth. There are great differences in the detailed representations of the behavioral trend of orientation of growth of the local governments of our country at the different stages of development, generally from management of enterprises to management of cities and management of parks. The local governments often attach great importance to the investment in the infrastructure closely related to the economic development and even actively interfere in the production and management activities of the enterprises but obviously pay little attention to the public services closely related to people's life such as basic education, medical care and health as well as social security, etc. in the process of promoting the economic growth, that is to say, there exists the problem of dislocation of the slow functional transformation and fulfillment of the functions of the local governments.In the framework of the governing structure of the local governments of our country at present, there exists the problem of the functional transformation of the government inapplicable to the requirements of the market economy in any region and such a problem is more prominent in Northeast China only due to the limitation of the special social, political and economic conditions of Northeast China. Its regional factors are mainly represented in the three aspects below. First, the reality of the excessively high proportion of the State-owned economy not only provides probability of the governments interfering in the operation and management activities of the enterprises but also requires that the governments shall interfere in the operation and management activities, to some extent. In addition, the basic attitude of the State developing the State-owned enterprises and the reality of the poor quality of the State-owned enterprises greatly depend on the governmental assistance measures, which further strengthens the behavioral trend of the government interfering in the State-owned enterprises. Second, the main interest-related parties of the State-owned enterprises take the passive attitude to the reform. In addition, the main medium-sized and large State-owned enterprises are the central ones in Northeast China and the local governments have no authority to promote the enterprises to deepen the form. Third, the excessively high proportion of the State-owned economy and enterprises seriously restricts the development of the nongovernmental enterprises.The Central Government and the local governments at all levels in Northeast China have formulated and implemented a series of policies and measures of accelerating the reform and opening as well as economic development, which greatly influence the functional transformation of the local governments in Northeast China in both the positive and passive aspects since the State implementing the strategy of revival of the old industrial base of Northeast China. Viewed from the positive aspects, first, the strategy of revival of the old industrial base of Northeast China that the Central Government implements shares the cost of the reform in many aspects, so it is easier to deepen the reform of the State-owned enterprises. Second, the ideological environment of the reform of the property rights of the State-owned enterprises is obviously improved, the decision of the local governments in Northeast China deepening the reform of the State-owned enterprises is strengthened in the unprecedented way and the reform of the State-owned enterprises is continuously accelerated. Third, many new measures in some aspects such as broadening of the access to the market, reduction of the approval procedures and improvement of the investment environment, etc. are promulgated in Northeast China. Viewed from the passive aspects, first, the strategy of revival of the old industrial base of Northeast China is, in essence, a regional economic policy; however, there obviously exists a trend of bringing the regional economic policy to the industrial policy at present. Viewed from the long run, all the governmental actions caused by such a trend will produce some squeezing effects on the nongovernmental economy, investment of the nongovernmental capital and other industries. Second, the local governments at all levels have the strong aspiration of making the prosperous economy in a short period of time under the big background of revival of the old industrial base of Northeast China, so the phenomena of the governments at all levels taking the project construction as their principal mission and indexes are given level by level in the governmental business promotion generally occur, which seriously influences the order of the market economy.It is the core of the functional transformation of the local governments in Northeast China to set up the internal mechanism of economic growth in the process of revival of the old industrial base of Northeast China. Viewed from such an angle, the local governments in Northeast China shall further deepen the reform of the governing structure of the local governments and the reform of the State-owned economic system, etc. to accelerate their functional transformation. Such aspects are not only the urgent problems to be resolved and main contents for Northeast China to accelerate the functional transformation of the local governments but also the important breakthroughs for it to accelerate the functional transformation of the local governments. For the detailed measures, the supervision and restriction of the governments at the same level by the local people's congresses shall be strengthened, the scopes of duties and responsibilities as well as financial relations of the governments at all levels shall be rationally divided, the mechanism of implementing the public policies of the Central Government and the local governments at all levels shall be improved and the"limited governments","responsible governments"and"transparent governments"shall be built.