• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 509 0

is large in absolute terms and has been growing rapidly in the reform era despite the government’s repeated downsizing eflorts.8 Official data show that the Chinese state, when measured by the number of officials and employees in government agencies (excluding teachers and those working in nonprofit government institutions such as hospitals), had an average annual growth rate of 1.8 percent from 1953 to 1978. But from 1979 to 1990, the rate was 6.7 percent—more than three times higher than the rate prior to reform.9

Because of the lack of a uniform standard of classifying state agents and the routine underreporting of personnel employed by the state at various levels, however, there are few authoritative estimates. At the high end of the estimated range, China appears to have had more than 40 million cadres in 2000.10 Official figures report that, excluding doctors and teachers, the number of employees in government agencies, CCP organizations, and other state-affiliated social organizations was 10.75 million in 2002, more than double the figure in 1978.11 The official data probably underreport the number of state agents. It is very likely that the true size of the Chinese state is much larger because local government officials routinely underreport the number of their employees to conceal the problem of overstaffing.

In 1990, for example, the data released by the most authoritative agency, the Office of the Central Government’s Staffing Commission (zhongyang bianzhi weiyuanhui),indicated that the number of excess personnel at various levels of the state was 55 percent larger than that authorized by the government (Table 4.2).12 If anything, overstaffing may have become worse during the 1990s because the government has not been able to streamline its operations. It is worth noting that the pattern of overstaffing is illustrative of the characteristics of a decentralized predatory state. In the Chinese case, overstaffing is most serious at the lowest level of the Chinese state—district and township governments. While the number of excess personnel at the higher levels of government (except for prefecture government) was, on average, 15 percent higher than the authorized limit, the number of excess personnel in district and township governments was 157 percent higher than the authorized limit in 1990. In fact, excess personnel in district and township governments accounted for about 80 percent of all the excess personnel in the Chinese state that year.

The actual size of the Chinese state, especially at the local level, may be even larger than the official figures indicate. For example, most local governments have used the practice of yigong daigan(substitute cadres) to keep excess personnel on the payroll. In 1991, 6 million government officials were employed under this classification.13 Unlike cadres employed in the official nomenclatural system, substitute cadres work as government officials but do not have formal official ranks. They are not included in the employment data for government officials. If these substitute cadres are included in the estimate of the size of the Chinese state in 1991, the number of people employed in provincial and local governments was about 13.5 million (excluding teachers, doctors, judges, and police officers). The actual size of the Chinese state, below the level of the central government, was thus about 180 percent larger than the authorized limit.

Table 4.2. Excess Personnel in Party and Government Agencies in 1990 (in 1,000)a

Sources: Zhongyang jigou bianzhi weiyuanhui bangongshi(Office oftheCentral Government’s Staffing Commission), Zhongguo xingzheng gaige da qushi (Major Trends in China’s Administrative Reform) (Beijing: Jingji kexue chubanshe, 1993),247, 411. Ren Xiao, Zhonggno xingzhenggaige(Administrative Reform in China) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1998), 242.

With rising ovcrstafHng, the costs of maintaining the Chinese state have been growing in both absolute and relative terms since the late 1970s. As a share of the national budget, administrative costs