Administrative Reform in Asia
Perspective 4: National Policy Positions
Finally, we explore the orientations of the surveyed Shanghai middle cadres toward selected post–1978 reform policies with national and international ram- ifications. Here, we are interested in the extent to which commitment to the dramatic post–Mao reforms introduced by the CCP leadership has filtered down to the critical middle (implementation) strata of bureaucracy in one of China’s most cosmopolitan cities.
The Table 7.17 data show that over 90 percent of the men and women who participated in the survey favored China’s late-twentieth-century policy of
“opening” to the West.7 Only 11 respondents did not approve of this reform policy.
Table 7.18
Respondent Orientations: “Foreign Investment in China Should Be Discouraged by Government Policies” (N⫽181)
Table 7.19
Respondent Orientations: “China Should Give Priority to Becoming a Member of the World Trade Organization” (N⫽181)
The survey included two items that solicited respondent opinions regarding specific economic dimensions of China’s official “open” policy of encouraging expanded economic relations with the global capitalist economy (see Howell, 1993: 3; Lardy, 1992: ix). The first focused exclusively on direct foreign in- vestment in China (see Naughton, 1996: 302–303). In this case, a majority (55 percent) of the Shanghai middle cadres held attitudes that were not consistent with the government’s reform policy of encouraging increased foreign invest- ment in China (see Table 7.18).8 Nevertheless, a substantial majority (87 per- cent) supported the official policy of seeking admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1997 (see Table 7.19). While attaining WTO member- ship would facilitate foreign investment in the PRC, increase competition with transnational firms, and require import liberalization (Naughton, 1996: 304), it would be accompanied by expanded access for China’s enterprises to overseas markets.
Three policy orientations explored in the 1997 Shanghai study involve re- forms that many analysts agree are essential if China’s economic growth is to continue in the new century (see, for instance, Naughton, 1996: 322). The survey instrument asked study participants to assess each of these reforms as important or not important in terms of the country’s future economic development. Tables 7.20–7.22 indicate that considerable support existed among the Shanghai re- spondents for all three of the reform proposals.
The data presented in Table 7.20 show that fully 78 percent of the surveyed middle cadres rated state enterprise reform as important in 1997. Only 22 percent did not hold this orientation. An even higher proportion of the responding survey participants (82 percent) assessed overcoming corruption as an important general
Table 7.20
Respondent Orientations: Importance of Reform of State Enterprises for China’s Continued Economic Development (N⫽182)
Table 7.21
Respondent Orientations: Importance of Overcoming Corruption for China’s Continued Economic Development (N⫽182)
Table 7.22
Respondent Orientations: Importance of Reform of the Legal and Regulatory System for China’s Continued Economic Development (N⫽182)
Table 7.23
Respondent Orientations: “Disparities in Wealth Are Inevitable If Most People in China Are to Experience Some Progress in Material Terms” (N⫽177)
reform measure (see Table 7.21). In addition, 70 percent of the respondents supported reform of China’s legal and regulatory system as an important mea- sure in order for China to realize sustained economic development (see Table 7.22).
Finally, we consider respondent orientations toward one of the most far- reaching policy changes introduced by Deng Xiaoping: that it is acceptable for
“some people to get rich first” in order for all eventually to prosper (see Xin Liu, 1997: 102). Table 7.23 reveals that the overwhelming majority (80 percent) of the surveyed Shanghai middle-strata cadres accepted an orientation toward disparities in wealth that is consistent with official reform discourse. In 1997,
Table 7.24
Respondent Orientations: Summary of Findings
only 20 percent rejected the proposition that material improvements for the masses necessitate disparities in wealth.
In sum, the surveyed Shanghai middle cadres tended to adhere to orientations that are consistent with government reform policies of national scope. Internally oriented policies received more extensive support than externally oriented re- form measures.
DISCUSSION
Table 7.24 presents in summary format the findings reported in this chapter regarding the reformist orientations held by surveyed Shanghai middle cadres in 1997. On the whole, the respondents demonstrated a remarkable breadth of commitment to reformist orientations. A majority of those surveyed adhered to perspectives deemed supportive of China’s administrative and economic reform measures on 16 of the 18 items analyzed above. Study participants expressed the most widespread support for encouraging contacts with the West and for
joining the World Trade Organization and showed the least commitment to the individualist ethic of placing priority on the accumulation of personal wealth.
These exploratory findings suggest that support for China’s administrative reform and economic development paths can be found among a broad cross section of the middle-management cadres which perform crucial roles in policy implementation at municipal, provincial, and national levels—at least in the progressive city of Shanghai.9
The data also suggest several cautionary interpretations in terms of the extent of commitment to reform at the middle levels. In the first place, the men and women who participated in this study tended to be favorably disposed toward certain reform measures (e.g., anti-corruption efforts) from a general, nationwide policy point of view rather than from an immediate application to “my organi- zation” perspective. Respondents also tended to perceive the impact of both nonreformed and alternative institutions in a positive light.10 This finding is consistent with the “polymorphic” and evolving character of the transitional state in China “whereby features of the former institutional complex coexist with the seeds of a new matrix” (Howell, 1993: 204).
The finding that a sizable minority of respondents (even in Shanghai) re- mained uncommitted in 1997 to most of the reform items presented in this study (particularly with respect to personal values) suggests that pre-reform orienta- tions retain a powerful attraction among China’s administrative elites. The pres- ence of diversity rather than uniformity in administrative orientations could provide a source of innovation and strength or of conflict and confusion for China’s development organizations in the new century. Finally, persisting ten- sions between equalitarian and professional values (see Freedman and Morgan, 1982: 258) and between collectivist and individualist perspectives remain un- resolved among this group of middle-management personnel.
Lack of consensus and ambivalence in middle-cadre orientations is likely to retard the implementation of some official reforms and to generate pressures for the abandonment or alteration of others. At the same time, the prospect of fruit- ful hybrid approaches emerging from various combinations of traditional, Mao- ist, and post–Mao orientations offers considerable promise in China (also see Yang et al., 1999: 19). One implication of these findings, for instance, is that the managers of public organizations are likely to realize improvements in per- formance by relying on differential (primarily nonmonetary) rewards as moti- vators11 while focusing on the goal of enhanced public service outcomes.
Another implication is that Shanghai’s current public organization climate of genuine differences in perspectives and in policy preferences will require a new emphasis on organizational-communication, conflict-management, negotiation, and accommodation skills.
Although they often are overlooked or ignored, the orientations held by middle-level managers are a crucial factor shaping the outcome of administrative reform and economic development efforts in developing countries (also see Hay, et al., 1990; Koehn, 1991: 246–251). In China, the powerful “middle strata of
corporate directors and local government leaders” control and manage an ex- ploding array of economic undertakings and, therefore, largely “run” the country (Zweig, 1997). This exploratory study suggests that many middle managers in Shanghai have superimposed reform orientations on a socialist foundation of attitudes regarding development and on state-dominated institutions in a unique transitional path to distinctively Chinese administrative and development out- comes (also see Guthrie, 1999: 6, 217).
NOTES
1. Deng “focused on economic development and linked administrative reform with economic development” (Ma, 1996: 9). On the need for administrative reforms to ac- company China’s economic reforms, see Burns (1993: 348–349).
2. The author, along with a colleague at this university, jointly prepared the survey instrument, which was administered in Chinese to all attending students.
3. Gordon Cheung and Irene Chow (1999: 370) point out that while managerial values are likely to have changed dramatically in light of China’s rapid economic de- velopment in the 1990s, available studies tend to be “based on data collected in the late 1980s.”
4. John Burns (ed. note in Dai, 1994: 201) defines cadres as “white-collar managers, administrators, and professionals employed in administrative agencies, service units, and economic enterprises.”
5. On the observed connection in Shanghai between the establishment of joint ven- ture partnerships and the adoption of formal organizational systems and procedures, see Guthrie (1999: 42).
6. On the recently improved status of the latter, see Rosenthal (1999a: A9).
7. Jiang Zemin, in particular, has advocated cultural exchanges on the grounds that
“one can learn from others’ strong points and offset one’s own weaknesses” (Ren Yue, 1999: 225, 265n).
8. Furthermore, only 18.2 percent of the respondents (N⫽170) viewed increased foreign investment as important in overcoming the problems or constraints that con- fronted their organizations in 1997. Xin Liu (1997: 102) maintains that the government’s
“emphasis on foreign investment and overseas capital as the key source for economic development in recent years” is based on the underlying assumption (apparently rejected by the Shanghai middle cadres surveyed in this study) that “wealth is ‘out there’ and needs to be seized.” These findings also lend support to Aihwa Ong’s (1997: 175, 177, 179) assertion that “while China welcomes offshore Chinese investments, mainland of- ficials remain ambivalent and suspicious of capitalism, and of overseas Chinese who appear to have little sentiment for the motherland.”
9. On the exceptional dimensions of Shanghai’s economic transition, particularly the extent of foreign capital investments, see Guthrie (1999: 12–15). On the other hand, Shanghai’s participation in the global economy has been handicapped by “basic structural features of its economy” and by “China’s largely unreformed national tax structure” (see Lardy, 1992: 134–135). On balance, as Doug Guthrie (1999: 14–15) concludes, “although Shanghai may be qualitatively different from several other areas in terms of institutional structure and change, this difference is primarily a function of degree rather than kind.
Shanghai is simply further along in the process of change.”
10. Moreover, the respondents’ positive orientation toward merit criteria might not preclude “attachingequalimportance to professional competence and political integrity”
[emphasis mine]. Indeed, the coexistence of both types of criteria is the likely outcome of reforming civil service regulations while retaining “strong Chinese socialist charac- teristics.” According to Dai Guangqian (1994: 192–193), this would mean, for instance,
“that the offer of appointment to applicants is subject not only to their examination results, but also to satisfactory results of background investigations that include an ob- jective assessment of an applicant’s political loyalty, performance, and morality” (also see Burns, 1993: 355–356).
11. More than three-fourths (76 percent) of the surveyed middle cadres (N⫽177) evaluated “involvement in decision making” as an important or very important personal workplace consideration. High salaries and bonuses—one of the primary incentives relied upon to stimulate individual motivation in the early stage of China’s economic reform (Guthrie, 1999: 78)—also were rated as important or very important by most study participants (73 percent). However, nearly two-thirds of the 1997 respondents (66 per- cent; N⫽181) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “an exciting career is more important than material comforts” (also see Bai, 1987: 171).
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