New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. xvii, 224 pp. (Tables, figures.) US$30.00, paper. ISBN 9780197648223.
Xiao Ma’s Localized Bargaining is a valuable addition to the literature on China’s intra-regional politics, which has heretofore been limited in English publications. Although the book’s title suggests a focus on the high-speed railway (HSR) program, its major contribution lies in analyzing how local officials in China negotiate with the central government, and how different types of officials behave in this bargaining process.
Based on intensive surveys and interviews in various parts of China, Ma examines China’s regional/territorial administration under an authoritarian regime. He views the national-level ruler and officials as the policymakers who decide and allocate “policy benefits,” while local officials are seen as the recipients of these benefits. The author divides local officials into two categories according to the features of thier position: cardinals and clerics. The former refers to those who have concurrent positions in two levels of government, while the latter refers to those who have only one position at the local level. This dichotomy is the key to understanding Ma’s entire book: how and why the cardinals, or dual-appointment officials, were capable of maneuvering policy resources for China’s HSR program from 2004 to 2014.
Ma’s analysis of the bargaining process between local officials and the central government sheds light on the mechanisms of China’s internal politics among the central state, provinces, and municipalities. His findings reveal how local officials can impact the allocation of policy benefits from the state government in rather unique bargaining processes.
Chapter 5, “Political Geography of High-Speed Railways,” is devoted entirely to the HSR case analysis. This case has been used to test the hypothesis that the presence of dual-appointment officials in their city’s leadership is effective in getting priority for constructing the HSR network and stations over other cities. The author uses Cox proportional hazards models to test his hypothesis, although the choice of nine independent variables is not explained adequately. The author highlights the fact that local leaders are more interested in getting railways approved than in getting them built. This fact reveals that some of these dual-appointment officials were promoted upon after receiving HSR approval as a good key performance indicator (KPI).
Ma’s analysis that the number of HSR stations in a city as a political KPI demonstrates the bargaining power of some local officials, is interesting. He argues that the more stations approved and built in a city, the better it is for the city; yet, this is not always the case. An an HSR operator may decide, according to the total demand and its distribution, the frequency at which to stop at each station. For example, Huizhou City in Guangdong has eight HSR stations at the end of 2023, more than most of the largest metropolises including Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. However, since most of these stations have very limited services, the HSR operator doesn’t want to stop their trains there, which would slowdown the train’s speed and become less attractive to travelers to and from major cities, thus leading to ever slimmer demand at these stations. This underutilization results in increasing deficits of the city government and showcases that the so-called policy benefits bargained by the dual-appointment officials can turn into local financial disaster.
Another point that some readers may find disagreement with is that the HSR in China has “the long and winding path to approval” (68–73). A list of 19 agencies is provided to show the complexity of the approval procedures for a single HSR project. The author argues that many of these steps carried out by different agencies represent complicated and difficult negotiations with various non-HSR related ministries at the national level, leading to prolonged processes and project delay. And yet, perceptions may differ on the simplicity or complexity of China’s approval processes compared to those of other countries. For example, one may argue that such procedures are necessary, and that in fact China’s HSR approval process should be considered the simplest and fastest in comparison with democratic countries such as the UK, where an HSR line took more than two decades to get approved.
Although the book has some arguable flaws, such as the choice of independent variables and the perception of the complexity of China’s approval processes compared to those of other countries, it covers many areas of discussion on China’s politics, revealing and addressing some critical issues not known outside of China. For example, a detailed explanation is given to a subtle relationship reflected by a top administrative position in a locality being filled by a person who is “placed” there with a higher rank, as a way to differentiate this locality to be superior to other localities at the same level of administration, due to the fact that a person with higher rank may be able to attend meetings that involve a higher level of decision-making.
Understanding how China’s authoritarian regime with multi-scale institutions operates internally, including the impacts of intangible factors, is crucial. Through properly defining and classifying localities by cardinals and clerics—and revealing how and for what purposes they behave as policy recipients who bargain policy benefits from higher level officials for their own interests at city levels in China—this book contributes by putting some intangible and often fragmented facts together into a clear macro picture for readers who want to know more about the mechanisms of China’s internal politics among the central state, provinces, and municipalities.
James Jixian Wang
Belt and Road Hong Kong Centre, Hong Kong