China’s Administrative Governance Reform in the Era of “New Normal”

The current administrative governance reform is a major political breakthrough that goes along with the economic rationalization or the so-called “new normal.” The introduction of social governance and the reinforcement of the unitary party leadership under Xi Jinping’s leadership constitute another irony. These two seemingly contradictory and paradoxical developments are what this paper is going to make sense of. This paper analyzes several aspects of the latest administrative reform, including streamlining government institutions and decentralizing administrative powers, transforming government functions from command and control to providing service and maintaining market order, and modernizing the government’s administrative methods.