Beijing 'ignored' by local cadres
State-run newspaper says regionalism needs to be reined in
Steps must be taken to strengthen central government power because Beijing's policies and decrees are increasingly being ignored by local authorities, a state-run newspaper warned yesterday.
In a signed article headlined 'Why the central government's decrees cannot reach outside Zhongnanhai', the China Youth Daily said action had to be taken to promote the central government's legal authority and to stop widespread disregard for its policies.
Zhongnanhai is the official residence of the ruling Central Committee of the Communist Party and State Council, or the cabinet. The China Youth Daily is run by the Communist Youth League, a power base of President Hu Jintao .
In theory, the mainland is one of few highly centralised places in the world. But in practice, regionalism has run wild following two decades of market-oriented reform, analysts say.
The article quoted Zhang Bao-qing, a recently retired vice-education minister, as saying that 'policies made by Zhongnanhai sometimes cannot reach outside Zhongnanhai', with one example being the refusal of many regional governments to implement a recent central government order to provide financial aid to poor students.
The newspaper said another example was local-level distortion or dismissal of the central government's macroeconomic policies.
But it said the most obvious example was the widespread failure of local governments to follow central government orders to improve safety in coal mines and to close unsafe operations.
Analysts have suggested that economic growth and its accompanying disparities among mainland regions - along with diversification of political, cultural, and social life - have driven the country's political decentralisation.
Mo Jihong, a constitutional law expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Law, said the article could mean the central government would get tough on regionalism.
Professor Mo said promoting the rule of law and judicial independence were the solutions to widespread malpractices.
'The current system and the old governance practices cannot guarantee that local governments will fully implement central decrees and policies,' the professor said.
He said the national legislature needed stronger powers to supervise local governments, including local legislatures, judiciary and executive branches.
The professor also said local judicial bodies should be 'nationalised' to make them independent of local governments.
The China Youth Daily article cited several reasons behind the widespread malpractices, but added that the most fundamental one was the backward nature of the legal system.
