This article explores how three types of logic of action - consequences, appropriateness, and power dynamics - configurate to shape the trajectory of an illustrative NPM-style reform in China, reflecting how the NPM paradigm has evolved through layering, displacement, and hybridization. Using a longitudinal case study in Guangzhou, we trace sanitation service delivery modalities from in-house delivery to contracting-out, to standardized contracting-out, to contracting-in, and finally, to public-private partnerships with state-owned enterprise. Our findings underscore the salience of the logic of power dynamics in an authoritarian context, suggesting NPM as a transitionary paradigm bridging traditional public administration and hybrid paradigms in China.

Since 1978, China's economic growth rate has attracted international attention. While China's economy has maintained rapid growth, energy consumption has shown an opposite trend, namely, the growth rate of energy consumption has slowed down, and the energy consumption intensity of the national economy has continued to decline. The tertiary industry is underdeveloped, and the producer service industry is stagnant, with outstanding problems. It is worth noting that the proportion of China's industrial added value in GDP(Gross Domestic Product) exceeded the peak value of developed countries during the Wang Yehua period. Under the new normal of economic growth shift and tight resource and environment constraints, structural contradictions will become more prominent in the coming period. In order to practice the low-carbon economic model, the government puts forward the requirements of ensuring China's energy and economic security and accelerating the transformation of energy revolution and economic development mode. However, structural adjustment is not a simple superposition of policies and measures. This paper studies the relationship between energy structure change and economic structure in China. Structural adjustment is not simply the superposition of policies and measures. We must also with comprehensive consideration of energy supply security and use security, so as to provide decision-making basis for ensuring energy security and carrying out national macro-control.

This article explores the following question: To what extent are good governance principles being institutionalised in China as a result of public-private partnerships (PPP) policy transfer? Since 2013, China has been pursuing PPP and applying aspects of related good governance drawing from Western experience despite its radically different fragmented authoritarian regime. This makes China a unique case to observe the extent to which good governance principles can be institutionalised in very different contexts. This article assesses the degree of institutionalisation of three good governance principles that guide PPP policy elsewhere: transparency and accountability, willingness to collaborate and equity between partners. It argues that while the PPP policies have been applied extensively in recent years, these good governance principles have been institutionalised to varying degrees as they have had to be adapted and compromised to fit with existing power relations in authoritarian China. The findings aim to add value to the literature regarding PPP policy transfer and good governance, by revealing the challenges of institutionalising good governance principles through PPP policy transfer in an alien context.

This article aims to fill the void in the literature regarding the sustainable development of public–private partnerships (PPPs) by answering the following research questions: (1) Between 1980 and 2017, what were the PPP-related policy priorities in the three different historical phases of the Chinese national agenda that we have identified herein? (2) Have the PPP-related policies shown a pattern of moving toward sustainable development, and if so, to what extent? Against a criteria framework of evaluating how PPP-related policies could contribute to sustainable development, this article conducted a quantitative bibliometric analysis of 299 PPP-related policy documents issued by the Chinese central government between 1980 and 2017. By visualizing the networks of policy keywords and policy-issuing departments, this article identified the PPP-related policy priorities in the following three distinct historical phases: Phase I (1980–1997), the encouragement of foreign investment in the public infrastructure; Phase II (1998–2008), the encouragement of the marketization of the urban public utilities; and Phase III (2009–2017), the intensive institutionalization and extensive application of PPPs for solving the local debt problem. Corresponding to the abovementioned policy priorities, this article found that the pattern of PPP-related policies has shifted from the total absence of sustainable development policies in Phase I, to a few sustainable development policy attempts in Phase II, and finally, to a tendency toward policies favoring sustainable development in Phase III.

The studies of post-communist Russia and China have traditionally been dominated by single-case studies and within-region comparisons. This chapter explores why the CAS of post-communist Russia and China is difficult, why it is rare, and how it could yield significant and unique intellectual payoffs. The cross-regional comparative study of anti-corruption campaigns in contemporary Russia and China is used as an example in this chapter to argue that a well-matched and context-sensitive comparison could reveal significant divergence in the elite politics and institutional capacities of these regimes that would otherwise likely be obscured by single-case studies or studies restricted to one single geographical area such as “Eastern Europe” or “East Asia.” By breaking Russia and China out of their respective “regions,” the CAS perspective thus enables us to better capture the full range of existing diversity of post-communist authoritarianism.

Abstract This article explores the dynamic and the results of efforts by citizens to resist the costs passed onto them by public–private partnerships for infrastructure, through examining citizen engagement in two problematic projects in Taiwan and China. In both cases, the design and procurement phase focused on the government–investor relation, with no obvious opportunity for citizen voice and costs were displaced onto users. In the operational phase, citizen protest (voice) was more effective in resisting costs in Taiwan where the institutional environment was more open and responsive; in the China case, availability of alternative roads (choice) was crucial in resisting costs. Key words: Public–private partnershipsaccountabilitycitizenshipvoicechoice Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge funding from the British Academy, the National Science Council of Taiwan and 985 project of Sun Yat Sen University in carrying out the research on which this paper is based. Thanks to Richard Batley, Chris Skelcher and Yijia Jing for comments on earlier drafts. Views and errors are entirely the responsibility of the authors. Notes Schedler and Marc (1999 Osborne, S. 2010. The New Governance: Emerging Perspectives on the Theory and Practice of Public Governance, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) usefully define accountability as both an obligation to give account (answerability) and enforcement of that obligation by the state (enforceability). An example is citizen protests over user charges for the UK's Skye bridge PPP investment, eventually leading to government buying out the investor and scrapping the tolls. Despite uncertainties surrounding PPP promotion (BOT investment amount was only sixty billion NTD in 2005, which did not reach the objective of hundred billion), the head of the Executive Yuan, Chang Chun-Hsiung, noted that PPP promotion policy would not be abandoned, though improvements in its functioning were being sought (Executive Yuan No.2974 meeting, 1 November 2006). The technology required was already available so did not need to be developed by FE. ETC adapts military 'identification of friend or foe' technology. This 'determines whether the cars passing are enrolled in the programme, alerts enforcers for those that are not, and debits electronically the accounts of registered cars without their stopping, or even opening a window'. It was pioneered in Norway and is in use in many countries, including UK, US, Chile, Singapore and Portugal (from Wikipedia, accessed 16 October 2011). More details in TCF website: http://www.consumers.org.tw More details in TPA website: http://twpa.ioe.sinica.edu.tw. 'In the ETC case, there are the interests of three stakeholders: the users, the private partner and the public sector. The private partner's interest was evaluated in the tendering stage, and the public sector interest and risk also were considered in the project planning and tendering stages. Furthermore, the interests of both sides have been considered at the contract signing stage. However, only the interest of users lacked consideration. The evidence can be found from the tendering criteria in which only item No. 12.3 refers to the "ETC charges to road users." This item includes the acceptance of users for the OBU function and the price plan, the reasonability of the OBU charge, and other costs to users for using ETC. However, this item is only apportioned 150 credits, accounting for 7.5% of a total 2,000 credits for the whole evaluation. Furthermore, the users could not form an interest group and be involved in the project procedures, and therefore became vulnerable. The TANFB, as the administrative bureau, should consider the user interest as the priority in the project planning, and protect users from loss due to any ETC/OBU change in the twenty-year contract period. This is the only way to meet public interest' (Taipei Senior Administrative Court Judgment, 2006). Taking the road sector as an example, a PPP/BOT project has to comply with a variety of different laws and statutes, including the Road Law (2004), Tendering and Bidding Law (1999), Land Management Law (2004), Contract Law (1999) and Regulation on the administration of toll roads (2004) if it is a toll road project, and Decision on reforming investment scheme (2004) if it involves domestic private investment. For example, the Circular Concerning Absorption of Foreign Investment by Means of BOT (Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, 1995) and the Circular concerning approval of foreign investment concession project (promulgated by Committee of Planning, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Transportation, 1995) are the first two statutes about BOT projects, but they conflict with each other regarding risk allocation and government guarantees. Under the 1994 tax reforms, the central government revenue began to collect taxes directly in local areas, where previously local governments had collected and passed a share of the revenues to the centre. Cooperative Joint Venture is the most common model in PPP highway projects in China. From 1990 to 2000, there were more than eighty CJV road projects between Hong Kong developers and provincial or municipal authorities, which mobilized seventy-five billion RMB (Chinese currency) from private sources (Bellier and Zhou, 2003 Beijing News. 18/07/2006. Citizen Challenged the Toll Road Charge for 15 Years Available at http://news.thebeijingnews.com/0548/2007/0718/018@276983.htm (accessed 16 October 2007) [Google Scholar]). Cooperative Joint Venture is a BOT contract with profits loaded to the 'front end'. It is preferred mainly because it enables the investors to recoup their investment more quickly than other structures since the parties can negotiate how and when the profits are ultimately divided. Furthermore, investing in a CJV company with a government agency might give the private partner more confidence that government will comply with the preferential treatment clauses in the contract (e.g. guarantees, tax incentives, foreign exchange loss protection) as well as the profit sharing arrangements. The report revealed the details of the high charges. Ninety-four per cent of the toll booths in Zhejiang charged 10 yuan/per car, which is equal to the maximum charge in its neighbouring province, Jiangsu. In the remaining 6 per cent of toll booths, thirty toll booths charged 15 yuan, six toll booths charged 20 yuan, one charged 25 yuan and nine charged 30 yuan. There were even five toll booths charging 35 yuan, which is seven times the standard charge (Research Unit in the Ministry of Communication of Zhejiang, 2004: 238). For example, the Beijing News ran a report about a Beijing citizen Ms Li who had been asking for information about investment and toll charges of the Jingshi toll road for fifteen years, but received no answer. The report concluded that the toll road has effectively become a 'private road' between the local government and certain interest groups (Beijing News, 18 July 2006). Rather than being forced to use the PPP model, as has happened, for example, in the case of UK's Private Finance Initiative hospitals.

This article explores the dynamic and the results of efforts by citizens to resist the costs passed onto them by public-private partnerships for infrastructure, through examining citizen engagement in two problematic projects in Taiwan and China. In both cases, the design and procurement phase focused on the government-investor relation, with no obvious opportunity for citizen voice and costs were displaced onto users. In the operational phase, citizen protest (voice) was more effective in resisting costs in Taiwan where the institutional environment was more open and responsive; in the China case, availability of alternative roads (choice) was crucial in resisting costs.

This article examines the power relations between the government, the private sector and citizens/users, which underlie the risk allocation process in public private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure. It argues that the institutional environment and resource dependency determine power relations, and hence risk allocation. The approach is applied to analyse risk allocation in a PPP toll road in Zhejiang province, China. The analysis reveals the dynamic of power relations among the parties. The findings show how the party with more power (in this case, the local government) was able to shift costs to the weaker parties (in this case, the users and the private sector). The implication of the study is that more effective courts and greater accountability of government to citizens are required to enhance the governance of such PPPs in China.