Chinese Provincial-level Administrative Divisions Reform

The topic of the reform of administrative division has already become a focus in the domestic administrative management system reform discussion at present, which evolves from the concern and discussion of the alteration of provincial administrative division and originates from the unreasonable present administrative division. Further exploration of the unreasonable present administrative division indicates that the development of the modern society has greatly changed the economic basis; while administrative division, one of the most important part of the superstructure, inevitably reveals the problems. From this point, the author chooses to discuss the rationality of administrative division from the angle of economy promotion.The district division, just as its name implies, is the division of administrative area by grade. According to the demand of administration and politics and the relative provision of law and considering thoroughly about the economic relation ,geographical environment, distributing of nationality, tradition, customs ,regional difference, density of population ,etc., it means dividing the territory into several administrative area system of different size and levels, founding regional authoritative machinery and administrative department, and establishing the network of governmental public administration to offer the unambiguous orientation for social life and intercourse.From Yuan dynasty ,going through Yuan dynasty, Ming dynasty, Qing dynasty and Republic of China, continuing to this day, with a history of over 700 years ,province, which is the highest grade of district division unit, , has become the important part of the system of society, politics and economy, and the indispensable part of the strategetic district division。Up to the end of 2006, there are 34 province-level administrative districts in China, it includes 23 provinces,5 autonomous regions,4 municipalities directly under the Central Government,2 special administrative region. Along with the social and economic development, more and more, the current district division of China cannot adapt to the needs and mode of market economy, and exert a restricting effect on the evolvement of our society's transformation. The main problems unfolded includes: the area of districts are too large and different; the scope of management is not uniformity and the administrative levels are excessive and in disorder; the disadvantage of the system of"county controlled by municipality"is increasingly in evidence, and is paradoxical with the tenet of equal competition, free union, mutual benefit; the shape of boundary of district, especially the provincial borderline, is dentate. This results in destroying the integrity of natural economic district; the system of the geographical general name of districts is in confusion; the degree of attaching importance to the special status of some big cities doesn't reach the ideal extent.According to the existing problems of district division, the developing tendency of our society, and the further research of academia, the reformation of China's district division should be carried out under the guiding idea of"small government, large society, unification, criterion". The specific scheme is : the system of the geographical general name of districts should be brought into order, the nonstandard geographical proper name of districts should be changed; the provincial districts should be divided into smaller ones and the management scale of provincial district division should be adjusted. Reducing the administrative levels and abolishing the system of"county controlled by municipality"; groping for new mode of the division of municipality and establishing the three-level district division system of"metropolitan province--metropolitan county--municipality"; this reformation can boil down to such purpose: reducing the administrative levels of provincial district division and the scale of management, using the same criterion, improving the management efficiency ,reducing the management cost, keeping the unification of our country, promoting the district mutual communion and co-prosperity.