China's Trapped Transition_ The Limits of Developmental Autocracy - Minxin Pei [153]
13 The practice of hiring substitute cadres is officially sanctioned. Wu Jie, Zhongguo zhengfu yu jigou gaige (Government and Institutional Reform in China) (Beijing: Guojia xingzheng xueyuan chubanshe, 1999), 434.
14 ZGTJNJ 2003, 285.
15 Ibid., 281.
16 Calculated based on the salary costs data given in ZGTJNJ 1979, 1999.
17 ZGTJNJ 2003, 285-286.
18 Zhongyang jigou bianzhi weiyuanhui bangongshi (Office of the Central Government’s Staffing Commission), Zhongguo xingzheng gaige da qushi (Major Trends in China’s Administrative Reform)(Beijing: Jingji kexue chubanshe, 1993), 62.
19 Wang Chengyao, “Shilun shuifei fenliu gaigc” (On the Reform to Separate Taxes from Fees), Shuiwn (Taxation Research) 10 (1998): 35.
20 At the local level, anecdotes of lavish spending by government officials abound. For example, an official study shows that, in 1998, in one of the poorest provinces, Anhui, each township government spent more than 100,000 yuan, and each village spent more than 10,000 yuan on entertainment-related expenses. In the same year, each township mayor (or party secretary) spent more than 100,000 yuan on automobile and cell phone expenses. Neibu canyue (Internal Reference), June 23, 2000, 16.
21 Not all off-budget revenues were illegal. The amount here referred to tax and fee incomes levied by local authorities in violation of the rules of the central government. State General Administration of Taxation, “Guanyu woguo feigaishui wenti de yanjiu” (A Study on the Issue of Converting Fees into Taxes in China), Jingji yanjiu cankao 86-87 (1998): 8.
22 Calculation based on data in ZGTJNJ1998, 283.
23 The experience of Anhui province is typical. According to an official study of fifteen township governments conducted by the provincial government in 1998, funding of excess township government personnel was provided by fees and fines collected by these governments. Township government officials hired within the quota system had their salaries fully paid out of the fiscal revenues of the county and township governments. Staff hired outside the quota were supported by off-budget revenue. Office of Rural Economy, Anhui Provincial Government, “Xiang (zheng) jigou gaige sizhai bixing” (Reforming the Administration of Township Governments Is Inevitable), Dangjian yanjiu neican (Party-Building Internal Reference) 1-2 (1999): 13-16.
24 Jingji yanjiu cankao (July 24, 1998): 9.
25 Fiscal decentralization in China has been extensively studied and singled out by many scholars as the principal cause of a wide range of policies and behavioral patterns adopted by local governments. See World Bank, China: Revenue Mobilization and Tax Policy(Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1990); Christine Wong, “Central-Local Relations in an Era of Fiscal Decline—the Paradox of Fiscal Decentralization in Post-Mao China,” The China Quarterly 128 (1991) : 697-714; Wang and Hu, Zhonguo guojia nengli baogao; Christine Wong et al., Fiscal Management and Economic Reformin the People’s Republic of China (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995); Le-Yin Zhang, “Chinese Central-Provincial Fiscal Relations, Budgetary Decline and the Impact of the 1994 Fiscal Reform: An Evaluation,” The China Quarterly 157 (1999): 115-141; Yasheng Huang, Inflation and Investment Controls in China: The Political Economyof Central-Local Relations During the Reform Era (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
26 In his assessment of China’s 1994 fiscal reforms, Pak Lee concludes that the 1994 reforms did little to strengthen the fiscal