Jamie Horsley Publishes Report on Good Governance in China

China continues to make headline news in the United States with its internal repression and external aggression. Yet, the Chinese Communist Party is simultaneously engaged in a long-term “reinventing government” project to build a more law-based, transparent, participatory, and accountable government, to enhance both its effectiveness and its legitimacy.

Book cover with title Will Engaging China Promote Good Governance superimposed over a map of China
Senior Fellow Jamie Horsley’s latest paper explores the implications of China’s overlooked access to government information and civic participation initiatives under the rubric of open government. This open government project often conflicts with the CCP’s strong impulse to control and maintain its preeminent position in China’s legal and political systems. Even so, facts on the ground demonstrate that fundamental changes are taking place in China’s legal and governance arena, and in Chinese state-society relations, as new values of legality, transparency, and participation gradually take root in China’s complex, dynamic reality.

Ms. Horsley argues that, because many of China’s new governance institutions are adapted from American and Western practices, they provide a case study of how engagement with the country is helping to promote positive domestic developments. These open government developments also hold a promise that a more transparent, participatory, and law-based governance system at home will encourage China’s more open and rules-based collaboration with the United States and the international community.

Read the paper.