TRADITIONAL APPROACHES AND BUREAUCRATIC
POLITICS
The Pattern in China
The Chinese bureaucracy is the world’s oldest. From the Han Dynasty, it was
a system whose members were selected on the basis of merit; its offices were
extremely well defined, and their functions were highly specialized. Authority
lines were generally clear and provided for regular reporting, rewards for good
performance, and monitoring of compliance. Of course, the ‘inner face’ or
personal dimensions of the bureaucracy diverged, in some eras greatly, from
the ideal; nevertheless, as Lieberthal mentions, the bureaucratic system
was ‘extraordinary in its scope, capabilities, and “modernity” ... It was a
profoundly nonpluralistic system, based squarely on the notions of hierarchy,
centralization, and the state as the propagator of the correct moral framework
for the society’.^1
Politics was never absent from the bureaucracy, and the influence of
officials usually depended on more than their examination skills and
capability. Family connections, personality, drive or ambition, region/county
of origin, friendships: all described different kinds of guanxior relationships
which configured officials into different factions competing for influence with
leaders.^2
The development of a rigidly authoritarian communist regime in China after
1949 transformed but did not extinguish the basic values of bureaucratic
culture. Indeed, the specification of the leadership in terms of the standing
committee of the Political Bureau of the party’s Central Committee clarified
elite status. Through the Maoist era, some indication of the probable success
in the implementation of a policy line could be ascertained by knowing the
ranking of proponents and opponents on the Politburo.
As the regime added environmental protection offices and functions from
the late 1970s to the present, it did not appoint to the positions individuals of
extremely high rank in the Party. Moreover, the ranking of environmental
officers never equaled those focused on economic development:
‘The National Environmental Protection Administration, for example, has a lower
bureaucratic rank than that of the various production ministries (it is an
“administration” rather than a “ministry”). While it can raise issues and draft
regulations, it cannot issue binding orders either to the ministries or to the
provinces, which have ministry rank, and thus lacks the authority to force their
compliance.’^3The State Forestry Administration (SFA), also an ‘administration’but one rank
below the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) in the
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