The jurisdiction of the Central People's Government and the local People's Governments shall be defined according to the nature
of the various matters involved, and shall be prescribed by decrees of the Central People's Government Council so as to satisfy the
requirements of both national unity and local expediency.
Mao Zedong expressed his opinion on jurisdiction on several times. On December 2, 1949, he wrote, the organizational regulations are essential laws for the current period, requiring uniform implementation by all local governments, though they may adapt them to local conditions. Effective governance in a large country like China depends on strong local institutions. While unity and centralization are crucial, they must be balanced with flexibility to address local needs. The feudal-era regional divisions have been eliminated, and the division of responsibilities between the central and local authorities is seen as beneficial rather than harmful.
On August 12, 1953, he explained
"Centralization and decentralization are in constant contradiction with each other. Decentralism has grown
since we moved into the cities. To resolve this contradiction all the principal and important issues must
first be discussed and decided on by the Party committee before its decisions are referred to the government
for implementation."
And 6 months earlier, he remarked, The “five excesses” refer to the overabundance of assignments, meetings and training courses, documents and reports, organizations, and side jobs for activists. These longstanding issues persist despite directives from the Central Committee urging Party committees to address them. Instead of improving, the problems have worsened because they have not been systematically addressed as a whole, nor has there been a concerted effort to combat the underlying causes of decentralism and bureaucracy. These issues primarily originate from higher levels of Party and government leadership, from the central level down to the county level, rather than being solely local problems.
Dissemination...
Three aspects of law dissemination under the CCP differed from earlier efforts in China can be found. First, party authorities emphasized that learning about laws was a matter of class consciousness. Laws were portrayed as expressions of the will of the people, materialized with the assistance of the CCP. As a result, individuals were expected to emotionally embrace laws and to support and uphold the party-state that had contributed to their creation. Second, the simplification of laws and legal language was implemented. Laws were crafted to be accessible to a wider audience and to be flexible, even if this complexity made their practical application more challenging. Third, the new regime opted to integrate law dissemination with techniques of mass education and mass mobilization.
Popularization and dissemination of law was done by extensive propaganda. Drama, opera, and film were the means to reach the public. Remote districts were visited by performing troupes. These performances showed the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and between ‘lawful’ and ‘unlawful’. The Marriage law was well suited for this kind of ‘education’. Most familiar old operas were used to portray the ‘old marriage system’, of which most of them did not have a happy ending. See Article 45 Althenger (2018) concludes that censors gained practice identifying improper ways of talking about the Marriage Law in publications, novels and performances. Gradually, this integration made it increasingly challenging to distinguish discussions concerning family and marital affairs from the official discourse outlined in the Marriage Law. In the guided public discourse of the 1950s, the language of the law solidified its influence. Individuals could no longer derive reassurance from educational resources or discussions indicating that behaviors diverging from the political interpretations of the fundamental essence of the law would receive legal and political protection, regardless of how this concept was interpreted at the local level.
State power...
According to the Common Program, the central government is the highest body of state power when the NPC is not in session. The People's Republic of China is a unitary state, the central government defines the division of jurisdiction between the central and local administration. The jurisdiction of the central government is written down in the “Organic Law of the PRC Central People’s Government” and
“…defines the central power as enacting and interpreting laws, formulating domestic and foreign policies, and appointing the leaders
of the state, Regions and provinces. But the jurisdictions of the local authorities are not specified." In practice, since the Central Government is only an executive assembly with no implementation and enforcement infrastructure and resources, it has to delegate most of its decision-making powers to the GAC. The Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, despite its independent status vis a vis the executive branch endowed by the Common Program, are in reality supervised by the Political-Legal Committee of the GAC, a mandate given personally by Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Central Government, and Zhou Enlai, the premier of the GAC. This means that the GAC are exercising de facto executive, judicial, and prosecutorial powers, as well as, to some extent, legislative power. See also Article 17 As seen in Article 14, in 1954, the six great administrative bureaus were dismantled, and two resolutions were passed: one to regulate provincial and district organs and another to increase the number of central organs. Following the abolition of the bureaus, provincial administrations were elevated from secondary to primary status, placing them directly under the leadership of the central government. Administrative regions at the provincial level were consolidated, with all cities coming under provincial jurisdiction, except for Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, which remained under the Central Government. Consequently, the number of provinces decreased from 53 in 1953 to around 30 by 1955.
The creation of the State Planning Commission in October 1952 is the hallmark of the call for increased centralization and unification in planning.
Hirata (2023). "...a central economic planning organ modeled after the Soviet Union’s Gosplan, its inaugural director was the
leader of Manchuria: Gao Gang. In November 1952, seven of the seventeen members of the SPC had experience in Manchuria.67 One policy document from 1952 noted methods of economic planning in Manchuria were “no doubt more advanced, and should be promoted in regions of China proper in the future.”68" Page 1085 [↩][Cite]
