China Is Authoritarian--That Makes Things Easy for Beijing, Right?

China is vast—about as big as the United States. It also has an authoritarian government, whose capital, Beijing, is near the eastern edge of the country, a thousand or more miles away from any number of provinces. What's more, many provinces have special circumstances that, ideally, require nuanced leadership. For example, some provinces are located on militarily sensitive international borders; others are socioculturally diverse and thus may not feel particularly sympathetic to Beijing; still others have large populations in their own right that are governed by dozens of local jurisdictions.

What, then, are Communist leaders to do? Come down heavy-handed and take a one-size-fits-all approach to governing? Do whatever it takes to oppress the population and deal with whatever unrest might result?

Quite surprisingly, no. Beijing, as it turns out, pays attention to the ways in which provinces require specialized and localized knowledge to govern them effectively. For that reason, the Communist Party often appoints provincial governors with considerable local standing and knowledge but who may have few or no close ties to the central state. When there is a crisis in a particular province, Beijing may indeed install leaders who are part of the president's inner circle; but it does so in a balanced manner.

In sum, China's authoritarian system relies on local expertise and experience as well as top-down control. To be sure, Beijing can appoint and remove provincial leaders at will. But far short of that, the central state balances central control and responsive regional governance.

A discussion of the governance challenges outlined here is found in an article by David J. Bulman of Johns Hopkins University and Kyle A. Jaros of the University of Oxford. The article appears in the June 2020 issue of Politics & Society.