Rethinking Environmental Bureaucracies in River Chiefs System (RCS) in China: A Critical Literature Study

Abstract

Efforts to understand the political complexities of water governance must include critical hierarchical or bureaucratical perspectives. The River Chiefs System, China’s national mechanism which has evolved from local attempts, values more political control than governance efficiency. Water governance, which is regarded as a political task, is allocated from river chiefs at higher levels to lower levels. The River Chiefs System stipulates that local river chiefs fully mobilize and integrate various technical and administrative forces to achieve environmental goals. However, the strengthening of local authority enables local river chiefs to combat or eliminate state power. Although public involvement in the River Chiefs System is encouraged to some extent, “government-dependent” public participation hardly ensures real public involvement and supervision.

How does policy innovation diffuse among Chinese local governments? A qualitative comparative analysis of River Chief Innovation

“…All levels' political leaders in Wuxi would thus be appointed as the chiefs of their corresponding parts of rivers. Their main tasks included "water resources protection, shoreline management, water pollution prevention and control, water environment management, water ecological restoration, and law enforcement" (Huang & Xu, 2019). And their performance would be included into the vertical evaluation.…”

“…And in December 2016, central authority issued Opinions of Comprehensive Implementation of River Chief, which was a coercive mandate that all governments should implement RCI. By the end of June 2018, all 31 provinces and autonomous regions in mainland China had adopted RCI, with approximately 300,000 leaders taking the office of river chiefs at different levels(Huang & Xu, 2019). In sum, RCI experienced a dynamic diffusion process, while the central intervention differs in different time periods.…”

Public Participation of the River Chief System in China: Current Trends, Problems, and Perspectives

“…The public participation of the RCS practice mainly focuses on end participation, supervising the implementation of the RCS. The responsibility in policy formulation, policy implementation, and performance appraisal still belongs to government-dependent public participation [37]. According to the survey data of Jiangsu Province in 2018 [38], the success of channels for the public to understand the RCS are 44% for public signs, 13% for publicity boards, 12% for the Internet, TV, and slogans, and 7% for other channels.…”

Determining Diasporic Chinese Identities from a Legal Perspective in China

“…Due to the ineffective governance aimed at controlling illegal river-sand mining via the license system, the central government furthered the political reform of river health, as well as riversand governance, on December 10, 2016. This meeting reviewed and approved the Opinions on the Full Implementation of the River Chief System(河长制) (Liao, et al, 2018) The River Chief System is a political reform based on the principle the top governmental leaders, from provincial level to township level, are the "chiefs of the river", who are in charge of and responsible for the river (see also Liu et al, 2019;Huang & Xu, 2019). The government planned to build an administrative system as well as an assessment system to evaluate the effectiveness of river management of these river chiefs.…”

“…Chief System across the county is to solve the environmental crises of rivers and to realize the sustainable use of water, sand, and fish species in the rivers (see also Liu et al, 2019;Huang & Xu, 2019). One of the major targets of this system is to "[r]esolutely crack down on illegal activities involving rivers and lakes and to resolutely clean up illegal sand mining activities"…”