China Federalism in Action

Posted by Stan on 3/26/09 • Categorized as China Law

The Fall semester is approaching fast, and I need to start updating my FDI and IP lectures.

I’ve been looking for some good examples of how Chinese federalism works, particularly instances of disagreement over policy authority between State and local governments.

Thanks to Sky Canaves at the WSJ blog, I now have something to tell my students this Fall when I introduce the subject:

Earlier this week, officials in south China’s Guangdong province, the country’s export hub, announced that they were bringing back the week-long holiday to celebrate International Labor Day on May 1. In late 2007, the central government had revised the national holiday calendar in an effort to ease travel-related congestion during the three annual “golden week” holiday periods, when it seemed like the whole country was trying to get on planes and trains to visit tourist destinations at the same time.

With its export-oriented manufacturing economy facing an ongoing slump, Guangdong hoped that the extra vacation days would boost tourist spending in the region. Travel agents and tourism experts welcomed the longer vacation, and governments in other regions toyed with the idea of taking similar measures to extend the May holiday.

But not so fast, says Beijing.

Today the State Council, China’s cabinet, issued a statement telling local governments to stick to the central government’s existing public holiday calendar. “Each locality should earnestly implement [the existing holiday arrangements], and not presume to make adjustments or make its own arrangements,” it said in the brief statement (here in Chinese).

OK, now I still need a couple more examples. One of them will definitely be about approval of property development, but I’m still open to other suggestions.


2 Comments

  1. G.E. Anderson
    Sunday, March 29, 2009 • 2:27 am

    Here’s another example: Central Government’s reversal of a Chongqing tax rollback.

    http://chinabizgov.blogspot.com/2009/02/not-so-fast-chongqing.html

    • Stan
      Sunday, March 29, 2009 • 3:11 am

      That’s a good one. I’d like to know what kind of tax this was (i.e. who promulgated the specific law or reg) and whether it was clear or not that the State, not Chongqing, has jurisdiction. Certainly localities give tax breaks frequently, in many cases going against State tax rules — these are essentially enforceable until their not enforceable. In other words, the State can swoop in at any time and start collecting that tax if they want.