Conclusiones

The central bureaucracy is highly fragmented and its governmental organs are poorly

coordinated. Each central ministry or agency of an equivalent rank, such as the MoE, CAS and MIIT, may administer certain policy areas and distribute resources for various uses that universities can seek access to. However, these agencies are not necessarily coordinated and their scopes of management sometimes overlap.

The party-state leads China’s education, science and research development through the Leading Small Group on Science, Technology and Education (LSGSTE) at the State Council. However, despite its alleged leadership over the national educational bureaucracy, in reality

110 _{As mentioned in the earlier chapters, many university leaders of leading institutions are former public servants,}

so they generally have already developed interpersonal networks within the government and sound knowledge of how the bureaucracy works (e.g. central politics and power structure for resources). For specific examples, see Footnote 94.

the LSGSTE has neither fully functioned in macro-level coordination between central agencies, nor involved itself in the central financial budgeting process. It has never issued an official document in its own name. Although the LSGSTE is chaired by the Premier, the issues on science, technology innovation and education are less important than others in his portfolio. Real leadership is normally held by a vice premier or state councillor, who may also have other priorities. The LSGSTE is run by a Secretariat under the General Office of the State Council, which also has many other responsibilities, with neither sufficient manpower nor incentives to coordinate. As a result, direct responsibility for science, technology and education policies is stretched across many ministries or ministry level agencies under the State Council, each with the power to propose and administer national programs under its jurisdiction, and with a budget directly allocated by the MoF. There is no uniform, national quality control standard, nor is there much exchange of information about projects funded across different agencies (Cao, Li, Li, & Liu, 2013, p. 460).

The central government has adopted a ‘countersigning system’ (huiqianzhi 会签制) to improve its internal coordination and accountability and to achieve agreement among an array of bodies.111 _{The ‘countersigning system’ refers to a bureaucratic process that requires all the} relevant central ministries to approve, sign off, or stamp an official document before it takes effect.112 _{However, in this deeply fragmented system, the ‘countersigning system’ only} addresses superficial problems while adding more tasks and complications to the decision- making process. As a university vice president suggested, when each matter has to go through and be approved by so many ministries, it often enters a limbo. Each ministry has its own interest, priority and understanding on a certain matter, and does not necessarily liaise or consult with others. It is difficult to achieve a good outcome, and many project proposals submitted by his university have drifted away and were never completed.

Meanwhile, ministries and agencies at the same administrative rank within the central bureaucracy often have conflicts of interest and develop rivalries. Central ministries regularly

111 _{The bureaucratic system of Chinese ‘countersigning system’ also enables some institutions to gain more political}

power. The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), for instance, now has a special project approval authority (xiangmu shenpiquan 项目审批权) role to sign off many national projects, because one will need MEP’s official stamp during the establishment and conclusion of a project in order to complete a project. As a result, MEP has gained an increase in power.

112_{A vice president gave me an example of a university research project that he managed. The ‘huiqian’ system for}

his project involved a number of central bodies, including the NDRC, MIIT, MOST, MoE, as well as the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), the Quality Supervision Bureau, and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO).

compete with each other for resources, influence of portfolio, performance ratings, and especially, the leadership and decision-making authority (qiantou bumen 牵头部门) over key national development and special funding projects (zhongda zhuanxiang 重大专项), which is determined by the State Council. A university executive recently observed that some MoST officials ‘got really upset’ that the MIIT won the competition to manage several new technology programs, because this defeat ‘downgraded the MoST from a leading to a mere supervisory body (jiandu bumen 监督部门)’. So why is it so important?

Managing more programs means gaining more money, power, influence and a higher profile in the central system. Generally speaking, once a national Research and Development (R&D) program is established and funded, the managing (leading) organ handles the implementation of the program on its own, such as calling for proposals and organising assessments and selections, and exercising executive power on project establishment, approval, recipients and amounts of funding.

These decisions are crucial to universities, and knowing where the final authority lies is of the greatest importance. The MoST, for instance, is in direct control over a large of amount of national science and research expenditure funds due to its portfolio of science and technology and its ownership of a range of major programs. Because the considerable resources and policies are under its own administration, the MoST is often a lobbying target that universities interact with regularly.

Universities are not only well aware of the fragmented structure of the central bureaucracy, but also adapt themselves to its structure. Universities try to exploit the fragmented and competitive nature, and focus on various lobbying targets simultaneously to maximise their chances of success. A key national university C, for instance, actively monitors and engages with multiple central agencies, such as the MoE, NDRC and CAS. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in recent years has been endowed with significant policy and executive power and can offer substantial central resources that are separate from the MoE budget. As a result, university C has placed a lot of emphasis on seeking direct policy support and financial

opportunities from CAS on areas including research training, international scholarships, commercialisation and priority setting for key national science programs, despite the fact that the university also receives supervision and governance from the resource-constrained MoE. University C’s strategy has successfully increased its funding resources.

Central agency A led and administrated a new significant national science and research funding program. The program accepted project funding applications that were submitted either by national universities directly or through their central sponsoring ministries (as a

recommendation). One leading national university, H, was determined to win a research funding place under this program, therefore developed a research proposal and lodged it directly to the central agency A. Shortly after, H received a verbal rejection from an official at the agency A before its application went further to formal proceedings. The explanation was that ‘the topic of the research is not on the funding priority list’, hence ‘this direct funding application will not be considered in the first instance’.

Knowing the competitive nature and poor coordination among the central departments, university H’s executives decided to slightly revise this proposal and submit it to a different central agency, the university’s sponsoring ministry B. Through informal interactions, repeated persuasions, third-party endorsement and evidence-supported analysis, H convinced ministry B to believe that this research project would make a significant, high-profile achievement and help improve the overall performance of ministry B. H also told ministry B that agency A endorsed their research project. Ministry B soon agreed to recommend and sponsor H’s project proposal and submit it to A. According to this national program’s policy, if a central ministry recommended and sponsored a university application, agency A had to consider and assess it thoroughly. Therefore, A accepted H’s application formally.

Being accepted did not guarantee success. University H soon organised informal meetings with officials from agency A, suggesting that ministry B highly valued their innovative research project and believed that it was in the national interest and would boost the government’s performance. Executives from H also claimed that the university was in the process of negotiating other funding sources (from B) for this program’s implementation, and that it would not be in agency A’s best interest to ignore the significance of the proposal. Should agency A be interested in also providing matching funds, the benefits and achievements would be shared between agency A and ministry B. Agency A was vigilant about competition and tentatively agreed to consider to ‘chip in’ to match the level of funds allegedly ‘promised’ by ministry B. After gaining some leverage, university H then went to ministry B, repeated the same strategy, and eventually convinced it to provide some funding. In the end, the university successfully managed to receive fiscal endorsement from both central organs.

A vice university president who was involved in the whole process concluded:

During this lengthy and complex process, our university’s executives undertook intensive and repeated bargaining, personal reporting, elaboration, and consultation with relevant departments and officials. They also involved internal and external research experts to promote the quality of the project and to add more weight to their arguments. Knowing that the central bodies would not speak to each other on many

competitive matters like this case, and that they are sensitive to peer pressures, we took advantage of it from the beginning and strategically lobbied individual departments. In the end, we turned the whole situation around!