A Research On Administrative Division Reforms In Contemporary China From The Perspective Of State Building

China’s state building is conducted in a specific space and time.China has a vast territory,a variety of different natural geographical conditions,and a complex neighborhood security situation.China has been a unified multi-ethnic country since Qin Dynasty.Its long history shows that unification brings peace,stability,order and development,and disruption leads to war,turmoil,chaos and recession.After the founding of PRC,especially during the past four decades of reform and opening up,China has achieved remarkable development achievements.Maintaining long-time unification,stability and order at the same time of rapid economic and social development is inextricably linked with China’s political institutional arrangements.Among them,administrative division is an important experience of China to maintain stability and development,and a political treasure accumulated by traditional Chinese political system arrangements for the state building of modern China.Domestic studies on administrative division are generally confined to the scope of administrative reforms,seeing administrative division adjustment as the content of administrative reforms.However they neglect that administrative division reform is closely related to modern state building.The paper aims to study how China promotes its state building through administrative division,based on the theoretical resources of state building,Administrative division means a hierarchical division of territory of a sovereign country by establishing government agencies,allocating officals,granting different authorities in each administrative region,to govern effectively.The nature of administrative division is the division of state power in vertical hierarchy and transverse space.China’s state building differs from the early formation of Western European countries or the state building conducted by some failed or fragile countries after World War II to maintain order.China’s state building is a transition from traditional state to modern state.Both traditional China and modern China conduct state building and promote modernization through administrative division in four aspects: national unification,national structure adjustment,economic development and administrative governance.Traditional China continuously enriched the administrative division system of the interior and border regions through administrative division reforms and laid the foundation for the territory of China.Through the adjustments of the hierarchy of administrative division,authority division,chain of command to adjust the relationship between the central government and the local government,it ensured the smooth and effective operation of the bureaucracy.And through the establishment of administrative division it promoted land development and economic development both in interior and border areas.It partly achieved the goal of administrative governance through the prefecture system,and adpoted the city system in face of administrative governance challenge that comes with modernization.After the founding of PRC,China’s state building went on track.Under a more complete political system,the administrative division of PRC has three features: changes in administrative division require national decision;hierachical administrative regions have complete political power and functions,with the characteristics of functional isomorphism;power organs and governments of different administrative hierarchy have different legislative,financial and personnel management and other authorities.These three features determine that the reforms of China’s administrative division is different from those of the states with far-reaching traditions of local autonomy.China could solve the problems in modern state building more actively through reforms of administrative division.Therefore,reforms of administrative division has a special and important significance to China.By enriching the administrative division of frontier regions,establishing ethnic autonomous regions and Special Administrative Regions,China has safeguarded national unification and implemented territorial rights.Through the establishment of national structure arrangements of unitary system,and the establishment and revocation of large administrative regions,the establishment of City-Managing-County System and Province-Managing-County experiment,China has further straightened the hierarchy in state structure,and ensured the effective operation of bureaucracy.By establishing province system and municipality directly under the Central Government,and special economic zones,China has promoted its economic development.Through the establishment of administrative regulations and Withdrawing the District to set City policy,Withdrawing the County to set City policy,and Withdrawing the County to set District policy,Town City experiment,and establishment of urban administrative division,China has accelerated its urbanization.Through the establishment of national park system,China has improved environment protection.Through the establishment of City-Managing-County system and County upgraded to City policy,China has put an end to traditional seperate administration of urban and rural areas,to realize Rural-Urban governance and improved administrative governance,and strengthened the governance of metropolises and metropolitan agglomerations through the establishment of Cooperative Governance mechanisms between cities.China’s administrative division is now in face of a series of new trends such as changes in the national security environment and disputes over territorial rights,advances in the transportation and communications technology developement,decentralization of power,industrialization,urbanization,population mobility,development requirements of more balance and comprehensiveness,and the implementation and development of Ruling the country by law.Problems are that territorial rights are not fully implemented,hierarchies of administrative division are excessive,basic administrative regions are too small,special economic zones are too many,urban administrative region regulations are insufficient,Cooperative Governance between rural and urban areas and between cities is still inadequate,and that reforms in administrative division are in lack of stability.In future reforms of administrative division,the administrative division of ethnic autonomous regions and frontier regions should be enriched,the municipalities should be cautiously increased,counties and townships should be appropriately integrated,the reforms of Province-Managing-County should be promoted,the construction of various types of special economic zones should be regulated,and County upgraded to City,Town upgraded to City policies should be promoted,Cooperative Governance between urban and rural areas and between cities should be strengthened,and reforms of administrative division should be included in top class designs,and regulations should be made.Understanding the political significance of administrative division reforms more comprehensively from the perspective of state building,we should no longer consider administrative division reforms as a policy tool to solve a specific problem.Including administrative division reforms into top-level design is beneficial to the promotion current state building.