In the past 20 years, China has implemented the policy of opening to the outside world, and its economy has moved from closed to open, and gradually expanded the breadth and depth of opening up, integrating into the international division of labor system and becoming an active participant in the process of economic globalization. The World Bank thinks that China is one of the few biggest winners in the process of economic globalization. In the past 22 years, the scale of China's international trade has expanded by about 22 times, and its world ranking has risen from the 32nd at the beginning of opening up to the 9th at present. The average annual utilization rate of foreign direct investment has increased from the low point of/kloc-0 in the early 1980s.
From 65438 to 0993, it has been the second largest foreign investment host country in the world after the United States, and now it has attracted foreign direct investment of 350 billion US dollars. The degree of internationalization of China's economy has greatly improved. By actively participating in the international division of labor and cooperation, absorbing foreign capital and expanding international trade, China has effectively promoted the upgrading of domestic industrial structure, created a large number of new employment opportunities, promoted the reform of domestic economic system, improved the operational efficiency of the national economy, enhanced its comprehensive national strength, and enabled China to play a greater role in international economic and political affairs.
China has won the initiative in economic globalization, because the China government has formulated a correct opening-up strategy based on its comparative advantages and has always implemented it. Generally speaking, China's comparative advantages are mainly low labor and land, systematic manufacturing base and potential huge market scale; The comparative disadvantages are mainly the weak development ability of some important technologies, the relative lack of some natural resources and the defects in the economic system. China has implemented import substitution strategy and export-oriented strategy in parallel in "commanding heights" areas such as automobiles and petrochemicals, and in labor-intensive areas. The simultaneous implementation of these two strategies has enabled China to avoid the serious imbalance of international payments in other developing countries that simply implement the "import substitution" strategy. In order to overcome the disadvantages that the system is not in line with international rules, China has taken the lead in implementing the system and preferential policies in line with international standards in special economic zones, development zones and other places. This partial breakthrough strategy has effectively promoted attracting foreign investment and expanding international trade.
Although the above-mentioned opening-up strategy has achieved great success, its cost is also quite high. For example, the international competitiveness of "commanding heights" industries such as automobiles and petrochemicals has been low due to long-term over-protection; The export-oriented sector has the characteristics of "big entry and big exit", which has little connection with the domestic economy and has limited driving effect on the domestic economy; The division of domestic market sectors and local protection are widespread, making it difficult to give full play to the economic advantages of big countries; Enterprises with different ownership generally have differences in taxation, market access, investment and financing, which seriously affects fair competition in the market, and so on.
After China's entry into WTO, in the new international environment, it will be necessary to adjust the strategies of "import substitution" and "export orientation" and gradually turn to the strategy of seeking competitive advantage under more open conditions. The basis of competitive advantage is comparative advantage, which has been studied a lot. People usually emphasize the advantages of abundant labor supply and relatively low price in China, as well as the advantages of vast territory and sufficient supply of some resources. In addition, there are two advantages worthy of attention.
One advantage is economies of scale in big country markets. China is the most populous country in the world, and it is in the stage of rapid economic growth and rapid growth of residents' income. The per capita income is close to $65,438+0,000. With the upgrading of residents' consumption structure, China has entered and is entering a period of rapid expansion of demand for products with significant economies of scale, such as household appliances, automobiles and electronic communications. This market condition may make some related industries form unique economies of scale in the world, including both internal economies of scale of enterprises and external economies of scale formed by industrial agglomeration. The resulting low cost is not only beneficial to domestic consumers, but also helps to improve the international competitiveness of these products.
Another advantage is that it has favorable conditions for the centralized development of processing and assembly manufacturing. Over the years, China has experienced a development stage dominated by textile industry and heavy chemical industry, and now it is entering a development stage characterized by processing and assembly manufacturing. At this stage, China can provide capital and labor (especially technicians and skilled labor) needed for processing and assembly manufacturing, and use relatively mature and high-level technologies to produce products with gradually improved technical content and added value. Judging from the trend of global industrial restructuring, a number of processing and assembly industries with high technological content and added value will also be transferred to China. In recent years, the Pearl River Delta region of China has rapidly formed a large computer assembly and processing base, which has shown this trend. It is generally believed that the automobile industry is one of the areas that have been hit hardest by China's entry into WTO. However, according to our research, after necessary adjustment, China will probably grow into one of the largest automobile production bases in the world in the next 10 year.
If the above comparative advantages can be successfully transformed into competitive advantages, under the new situation of China's accession to the WTO and the accelerated development of economic globalization, it is entirely possible for China to be in a more favorable position in the international division of labor.
(B) China city government function transformation: the progress made.
The continuous expansion of China's opening to the outside world has effectively promoted the transformation of the domestic economic system from a planned economy to a market economy. In order to avoid the inconsistency between the domestic economic system and the internationally accepted market rules, China took the lead in introducing market mechanisms in special economic zones and other fields, and implemented economic and trade rules in line with international practices. Special economic zones are not only the window of China's opening to the outside world, but also the experimental field of market-oriented reform. The China government has extended the successful experience of the SAR to a wider scope, forming a benign interaction between opening up and reform. In this process, the transformation direction and definition basis of China government functions gradually became clear. 1993 "the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China's decision on several issues concerning the establishment of a socialist market economic system" points out: "transforming government functions and reforming government institutions are urgent requirements for the establishment of a socialist market economic system. The government's function in managing the economy is mainly to formulate and implement macro-control policies, do a good job in infrastructure construction and create a good environment for economic development. At the same time, it is necessary to cultivate the market system, supervise the market operation and maintain equal competition, adjust social distribution and organize social security, control population growth, protect natural resources and ecological environment, manage and supervise the operation of state-owned assets, and achieve the goal of national economic and social development. The government uses economic, legal and necessary administrative means to manage the national economy and does not directly interfere with the production and business activities of enterprises. " This paper summarizes the progress of our country's understanding of the government's economic functions after the reform and opening up, and also points out the basic direction of the transformation of government functions. According to this basic direction, many positive changes have taken place in government functions in recent years.
-The framework of macro-control system based on indirect means was initially established. The reform of planning, finance, taxation and financial system has been gradually deepened, and the control mechanism of coordination and mutual restriction between planning, finance and finance has basically taken shape. The national plan highlights the macro, strategic and policy nature, greatly reduces the mandatory planning indicators, and emphasizes that the planning indicators should be few and precise, which is predictive and instructive as a whole. The fiscal and taxation system is changing from the production, construction and operation finance under the planned economy to the public finance under the modern market economy, and a new fiscal and taxation system with the tax-sharing system as the core is initially formed. The financial system has got rid of the stereotype of "financial cashier" in the planned economy period and is building a modern financial institution system, a financial market system and a financial supervision system according to the needs of developing the socialist market economy. By comprehensively using economic and legal means such as fiscal and tax policies, monetary and credit policies, the government has effectively controlled the serious inflation and deflation trend to a certain extent, and gradually accumulated useful experience in maintaining macroeconomic stability in the process of economic transition.
-Some progress has been made in the cultivation, standardization and supervision of the market system. On the basis of the continuous development of the commodity market, the China Municipal Government has gradually cultivated the factor market and strived to establish a unified, open and competitive market system. The basic role of market in allocating resources is increasingly obvious. In 2000, the proportion of retail sales of social goods at market prices reached 95%, 6 percentage points higher than that of 1995. There are more than 1 000 listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets, with a total stock market value exceeding 4.8 trillion yuan, accounting for 57% of GDP and a turnover of 6.08 trillion yuan. Great progress has been made in the foreign exchange market, labor market and technology market. Since 1990s, laws and regulations such as Product Quality Law, Anti-unfair Competition Law, Consumer Protection Law, Company Law, Commercial Bank Law and Securities Law have been promulgated and implemented one after another. For the futures market and securities market with high risks, the risk prevention and supervision mechanism has been strengthened by improving the listing rules, trading rules and information disclosure system. The government's regulation and supervision of market subjects, market organization forms and market transactions are moving towards the track of institutionalization.
In the past, the way the government directly managed state-owned enterprises has changed to a certain extent. Great strides have been made in separating government from enterprise. The army, armed police and political and legal organs formed under specific historical conditions have changed the practice of running enterprises through business. Government departments have lifted their administrative affiliation with directly affiliated economic entities and enterprises, and no longer directly manage enterprises. The reform of monopoly industries such as telecommunications, electric power, railways and civil aviation has made a good start. In strengthening the function of owner supervision, the government has taken measures such as sending supervisory committees to key state-owned enterprises and financial institutions, authorizing asset management institutions and large enterprises to operate state-owned assets, and realized the preservation and appreciation of state-owned assets. The state has put forward the policy of "making progress and retreating" and "doing something and not doing something", and is implementing strategic adjustment to the state-owned economy. Various non-public sectors of the economy have developed rapidly. The proportion of various ownership economies in the national economy has changed significantly, and the proportion of non-public ownership economies in GDP is close to 1/4. China government promises that after its entry into WTO, it will not exert direct or indirect influence on state-owned enterprises, so as to ensure equal competition among all kinds of enterprises.
-Foreign-related economic management has gradually moved closer to international practice. The reform of foreign trade and foreign exchange management system has been gradually deepened. By lowering tariffs, reducing quotas, abolishing export subsidies, and implementing a managed floating exchange rate system in which RMB is convertible under current account, a foreign trade and foreign exchange operation mechanism in line with internationally accepted rules has been initially formed. The geographical and industrial restrictions on the introduction of foreign capital have been gradually relaxed, and governments at all levels have made active efforts in improving relevant laws and regulations, managing foreign capital according to law, simplifying procedures and improving the investment environment.
-The government's function of promoting coordinated economic and social development has been strengthened. With the improvement of China's economic marketization, import, resources, environment and social security are putting increasing pressure on modernization. In order to adapt to this situation, China government has formulated and implemented the strategy of sustainable development and the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education, and actively strengthened the construction of social security system. At present, the birth rate in China has dropped to a very low level. The government has implemented a strict resource management system and achieved certain results in ecological environment protection and construction. The government has strengthened its support for basic scientific research and put applied scientific research institutions on the market. Great progress has been made in popularizing compulsory education, eliminating illiteracy among young and middle-aged people and reforming the higher education system. Social security systems such as pension, medical care and unemployment insurance, which are compatible with the new system, are being promoted in an orderly manner.
-The government has made some progress in its own reform. First of all, the basic principles of governing the country according to law and administration according to law have been established, and the goal of establishing a clean, diligent, pragmatic and efficient government has been put into practice. In accordance with the requirements of building a socialist country ruled by law, the government attaches importance to and strengthens administrative legislation, administrative law enforcement and administrative supervision, and establishes and gradually improves the civil service system and the system of building a clean government. Secondly, the reform of government institutions has gradually deepened. From 1998, a new round of government institutional reform began from the State Council to local governments. This reform emphasizes the transformation of government functions and the separation of government from enterprise. According to the principle of simplification, efficiency and consistency of power and responsibility, the organization and staffing are greatly adjusted and streamlined; Focus on strengthening comprehensive economic departments and law enforcement and supervision departments, streamlining and merging professional economic departments, and appropriately adjusting social management departments. After the institutional reform, the number of departments in the State Council decreased from 40 to 29, and the number of internal departments decreased 1/4. More than 200 functions were handed over to enterprises, social intermediary organizations and local governments, and the staffing was reduced by half. The work style and efficiency of the organs have improved. Local governments at all levels have also been streamlined accordingly, and their responsibilities and authorities have been further clarified. Third, political democratization is moving forward. Listening more to the opinions of experts and the public and accepting media supervision have promoted the democratization and scientificity of decision-making. Through direct election of deputies to district and county people's congresses and leaders of rural grass-roots political power, and the implementation of open government affairs and village affairs, grass-roots democratic politics has developed. Non-governmental autonomous governance mechanisms such as non-profit organizations and trade associations have also gradually developed, and they have begun to play an active role in striving for public interests, coordinating economic and social contradictions, supplementing, replacing and supervising government functions.
(C) the main problems in the transformation of government functions
The functional transformation of governments at all levels in China has made progress to varying degrees, but there are still many problems. On the whole, the government's own reform still lags behind the process of economic system transition, and the transformation of government functions is less than institutional reform. In some cases, the transformation of government functions and its own reform are the result of active promotion, while in other cases, it is forced by the pressure of the situation, lacking foresight, depth and systematicness, and treating the symptoms rather than the root cause. There are still a series of deep-seated contradictions to be solved in the relationship between government and enterprises, government and market, and government and social autonomy.
-There is still too much direct government intervention in the micro-economy, especially in state-owned enterprises, and an effective state-owned assets management system has not yet been formed. The administrative examination and approval system formed during the planned economy period and expanded during the economic transition period still exists widely, especially in the fields of enterprise establishment, appointment and dismissal, investment and foreign trade, which need to be cleaned up and reduced urgently. It is worth noting that in the process of promoting the reform of state-owned enterprises, the implementation of some policies has also produced side effects of strengthening administrative examination and approval and case handling. In the asset reorganization activities of state-owned enterprises, such as shareholding system reform, stock issuance, merger and reorganization, some departments and local governments often conduct inappropriate administrative intervention on enterprises out of departmental interests, local interests and even the will of the chief executive. For example, enterprises with good benefits are forced to take care of inferior enterprises in investment, secured loans and asset restructuring, and even apportion government administrative expenses to enterprises. The problems of unreasonable layout and long front of state-owned economy are still outstanding, and the strategic adjustment is not strong enough and the progress is slow. There are still too many restrictions on the non-public economy, and the public competition environment has not yet formed. The confusion between the government's public management function and the owner's function of state-owned assets has not fundamentally changed. How to build a new management and operation system of state-owned assets has become an important problem to be solved urgently in deepening the reform of state-owned enterprises.
-The reform of investment and financing management system lags behind. In the field of investment and financing, there is a tendency for the government to directly intervene in micro-investment and financing activities to achieve macro-control objectives, which often fails to achieve the expected purpose of macro-control, and at the same time strengthens the abnormal intervention of the government in investment and financing activities. Many departments and local governments still assume the functions of investment and financing subjects too much, spend a lot of energy to compete for funds and projects, and investment decisions depend on the approval of administrative organs at all levels, failing to follow scientific and rigorous market-oriented investment decision-making procedures and lacking strict investment risk responsibility mechanism, which often leads to major investment mistakes.
-insufficient efforts have been made to regulate and supervise the market order. First, the laws and regulations regulating the market order are still not perfect. For example, the anti-monopoly law has not been promulgated for a long time, so it is difficult to break the administrative monopoly by legal means; The exit mechanism of the securities market has not been finally established, and the quality of listed companies is difficult to guarantee. Second, lax law enforcement, lax management, lax discipline, and even non-compliance with laws, which leads to the existing laws and regulations in name only. Third, local protectionism and departmental division constantly change their methods, which hinders the formation of a unified national market. These factors lead to a chaotic market order, which is manifested in the proliferation of fake and shoddy goods, rampant tax evasion, foreign exchange fraud and smuggling, chaotic social credit relations, widespread debt evasion, serious fraud in the construction field, poor engineering quality and so on.
-Some government departments tend to collectivize interests, make them non-public, weaken public service functions, and even aggravate institutional corruption. After the government reforms and cancels the specialized economic departments, the public service functions of comprehensive economic departments, law enforcement and supervision departments and social public management departments need to be strengthened. However, at present, some government departments are making plans, schemes and regulations, or dealing with them. The contradiction between public interests and public interests is often limited by the interests of the department or the industry under its jurisdiction, and the national interests and public interests are not considered enough, and even administrative decisions that violate these interests and legal procedures are made. With the gradual deepening of the market-oriented reform of monopoly industries, the contradiction between departmental interests, industrial interests and social public interests in related fields is becoming the focus of attention from all walks of life. Under the current administrative system, the same department has the functions of decision-making, execution and supervision, which is easy to strengthen the vested interests of the department and make some administrative departments more attached to the administrative examination and approval power than local governments. Because there are too many administrative examination and approval items for microeconomic activities, institutional corruption is difficult to be effectively curbed, and even intensified in some places and departments.
-The relationship between the central and local governments has not yet been straightened out. At present, the outstanding problem is that (1) the distribution of state financial power between the central and local governments is still unreasonable. On the one hand, the financial resources at the disposal of the central government are obviously lower than the foreign average. Many places misappropriate wages and pensions for construction and leave debts to the central and provincial governments, which is not conducive to the effective macro-control of the central government, nor to helping the economic and social development of underdeveloped areas through transfer payments. On the other hand, the national tax legislative power is too concentrated in the central government, and the division of tax power lacks a stable legal basis, which will inevitably lead to local governments adapting the national tax law, ultra vires tax reduction and exemption, and abusing the right to charge. (2) In the process of decentralization, some powers that should be delegated to enterprises have not been implemented to enterprises. Some autonomy granted by the central government to enterprises is often intercepted by local governments, and many local governments are unwilling to delegate power to enterprises, which lags behind the central government in separating government from enterprises. (3) The framework of administrative centralization-decentralization-centralization has not been fundamentally broken, and the framework of reasonably dividing the central and local economic functions, responsibilities and rights according to the laws of market economy is still unclear. People are used to thinking according to the idea of "centralization before decentralization" under the planned economy, instead of establishing the concept of "decentralization before centralization" under the market economy. Most of the plans and preferential policies for economic system reform formulated by the state are piloted according to administrative levels and administrative divisions, and then gradually promoted, or limited to implementation in a certain administrative division. This often increases the administrative level, such as the establishment of cities with separate plans, which makes the relationship between the central and local governments more complicated. The implementation of differential preferential policies by the central government for different regions is not conducive to strengthening regional economic ties and promoting coordinated regional development. Inappropriate decentralization can easily lead to macro-economic runaway, widening regional gap and prevailing local protectionism, which in turn may become an incentive for re-centralization.
-The unity and transparency of administration according to law are not high. First of all, the process of economic system reform is not coordinated with the legislative process, which affects the effect of law enforcement. At present, China has made great progress in formulating laws and regulations on market subject, market behavior and macro-control. However, due to the transition of economic system and the transformation of government functions, the effect of law enforcement is often unsatisfactory. For example, the implementation of anti-unfair competition law often encounters obstacles from administrative monopoly. Secondly, law enforcement lags behind legislation. There is a lack of strong supervision and restriction on acts that fail to comply with the law, are lax in law enforcement or even violate the law. The phenomenon that the rule of man is greater than the rule of law occurs from time to time in many places, which seriously damages judicial independence and judicial justice. Thirdly, there are contradictions between the laws and regulations of departments and local governments and even internal documents and national laws. In the practice of administrative law enforcement, the authority of internal documents is greater than departmental laws and regulations, and the authority of departmental laws and regulations is greater than national laws. When dealing with contradictions and problems, some departments and local governments often rely on local internal documents and regulations first, and then consider central regulations, departmental rules and national laws. What's more, some local courts judge cases not according to national laws and regulations, but according to internal documents and even the will of the chief executive. Such problems are mostly manifested in enterprise restructuring and foreign-related economic disputes.
(d) The new challenges posed by China's accession to the WTO to the government of China.
It should be said that in the complex environment of economic transition, it is not easy for China government to make progress in functional transformation and institutional reform. The international community has also made positive comments on this. Various problems and contradictions in the reform are inevitable to a certain extent and for a certain period of time, and can only be solved by further deepening the reform. China's entry into WTO has put forward a series of new requirements and challenges to the role of the government, and even stipulated the schedule of government reform in some aspects, which greatly enhanced the urgency of accelerating government reform.
Joining the WTO is an independent and positive choice of the government and people of China. This choice is based on the understanding of the law of international economic development and the knowledge and confidence of China's potential to participate in global economic competition. For China at this stage, WTO and economic globalization are both double-edged swords, with advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, China's accession to the WTO provides new opportunities for China's economic development. For example, China can seize the opportunity of international industrial transfer, attract more multinational companies to invest in China, speed up the industrialization process of China and upgrade its industrial structure; You can participate in the international division of labor more deeply and give play to your own reality and potential comparative advantages; We can seize the opportunity brought by the new technological revolution, give full play to the advantages of backwardness, develop high-tech industries and realize the leap-forward development of the economy. On the other hand, after joining WTO, China is facing severe challenges. Due to the further opening of the market, the domestic economy is bound to face strong competitive pressure in the international market. China's traditional superior products will be more and more challenged by other developing countries in the international market. In attracting foreign investment, we face fierce competition from neighboring countries. China promised to open its market in the WTO negotiations, and the strategy of combining "import substitution" with "export orientation" will be difficult to continue as in the past. According to some international research reports, in the late 1990s, China's economic competitiveness declined, not improved. After joining the WTO, whether China can effectively improve its economic competitiveness will be a severe test. After China's entry into WTO, it will have a more profound impact on China's current economic system, among which the most direct and prominent is the challenge faced by governments at all levels.
-put forward new requirements for accelerating market-oriented reform. Joining the WTO is essentially to participate in international economic competition in accordance with the unified rules of the market economy. Whether the market can be further opened and competition can be introduced to promote economic development depends on whether the domestic market mechanism can fully play its role. After more than 20 years of market-oriented reform, China has initially established a framework of market economy, but the reform of state-owned enterprises and the establishment of a unified and open domestic market system are still relatively backward. If the reforms in these areas cannot be accelerated and achieved remarkable results, the expansion of the open market may not benefit and suffer first.
-It puts forward higher requirements for reasonably grasping the process of market opening, seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages, and promoting development through opening up. After China's entry into WTO, the China government will fulfill its promised timetable for opening the market. The issues involved include lowering tariffs, removing non-tariff barriers, liberalizing trade management rights, opening the service trade market, implementing national treatment for foreign investors, and strengthening intellectual property protection. Most of these changes will be realized before 2005, and time is pressing. Market opening will introduce competitive pressure, which will help improve the efficiency of domestic resource allocation; However, opening up too quickly may also have a great impact on domestic industries, cause some economic and social problems, and adversely affect the process of opening up and reform. This requires the government to speed up domestic reform before opening wider to the outside world, improve the adaptability of domestic enterprises and markets to external shocks, and at the same time, reasonably grasp the process of market opening, take effective measures to resolve the contradictions that may be caused by market opening, and minimize the negative impact.
-Higher requirements have been put forward for the government to maintain macroeconomic stability under open conditions. After China's accession to the WTO, China's economy has been more deeply integrated into the global economy. On the one hand, we can share more benefits of global division of labor; On the other hand, it is more vulnerable to external shocks. Theoretically, it is difficult for a government to take into account the three goals of independent monetary policy, fixed exchange rate and free capital flow at the same time. Only when the government has a strong ability to stabilize the macro-economy under open conditions can it create a more stable market environment for its enterprises. At the same time, in the face of various financial and economic crises with great uncertainty, the government is required to show stronger ability in crisis management and maintaining national economic security.
-put forward new requirements for the government management mechanism. After China's entry into the WTO, it is required that government agencies should be leaner, more scientific in decision-making, more transparent in policies, more perfect in integrity and further improved in efficiency. Only in this way can we create a "soft environment" conducive to enhancing China's economic competitiveness and make China in a favorable position in international economic competition and cooperation.