European Group of Public Administration Conference 2008 Evolution of Open Government Information in China
Jiang Ying1提高记忆力培训
电锅蛋糕Public Administration, Korea University
Abstract: The evolution of China’s Open Government Information Regulation shows the features of change from “Secrecy is normal and open is exception”to “Open is normal and crecy is exception”, breakthrough in localities, and a tool for government transparency improvement. In a Chine context, the implementation of Open Government Information, as a relative new innovative regulation, must face a lot of challenges, mainly related to the enormous tasks for all government agencies, weakness of OGIR, decentralized approach without clear central instructions and c onflicts with other laws or regulations. Therefore, it will take the Chine government agencies a long time to get ud to the new concept of government sharing information with the public and to help this regulation take root in China.
I. Introduction
沾衣十八跌
Nowadays, more than 60 countries all over the world have the so-called Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)2and more than 30 cities in China have promulgated local regulations on Open Government Information (Jamie P. Horsley, 2007). On May 1, 2008 China’s Open Government Information Regulation (OGIR)3finally came into force, after more than 12 months’ preparation (The State Council, 2007), which empowers citizens to access to government information and explicitly requires government agencies to be more open in information disclosure to boost official transparency. Although there are some differences between China’s OGIR and international FOIAs, some basic rules are the same, such as “Open is normal and crecy is exception4”, which is far-reaching for the construction and reform of China’s E-government inherited from the livelong history of government crecy.
So far, among all the local OGIR5s, while the State Council deliberated over a draft of China’s 1Jiang Ying, Chine, Public Administration, Korea University.
2Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): 信息自由法in simplified Chine.
3China’s Open Government Information Regulation (OGIR): 政府信息公开条例in simplified Chine, a national regulation which was announced by the State Council(simplified Chine: 国务院), China’
s cabinet, on April 24, 2007 and took effect on May 1, 2008. Within Chine legal system, administrative regulation promulgated by the State Council, such as OGIR, is only subordinate to the constitution and the laws pasd by the National People’s Congress(simplified Chine: 全国人民代表大会).
4Open is normal and crecy is exception: 以公开为原则，以不公开为例外in simplified Chine.
5In this paper, the national regulation on open government information is called as “China’s Open Government
first regulation on open government information, Shanghai6, a global metropolis, announced China’s first provincial-level open government information regulation on January 20, 2004 and put it into effect on May 1, 2004 (Eastday web, 2008). Shanghai’s Municipal Open Government Information Regulation then became the “Gold Standard” followed by China’s central government and other provinces, becau the Municipal OGIR in Shanghai reprents the most comprehensive framework and contains more details than the pioneering Guangzhou Municipal Open Government Information Regulation announced on November 6, 2002 and in effect on January 1, 2003 (the Guangzhou Government, 2002) and other local ones.
Between May 1, 2004, the commencement of the Municipal OGIR in Shanghai, and December 31, 2007, Shanghai government agencies received a total of 35,282 access requests (e the following chart). In 2007, a total of 6,485 requests were received, a decrea by 1,048 (13.91%) from 2006, 5,980 (47.97%) from 2005 and 2314 (26.30%) from 20047. It indicates that the capacity of government’s publishing government information is increasing. Moreover, the percentage of full-disclosure respons in 2007 is lower than tho of last three years (compared to 67.61% in 2007 and 75.06% in 2006, 74.97%in 2005 and 79.26% in 2004). However, the percentage of refusals increas from 20.48% in 2006 to 27.32% in 2007 (21.92% in 2005 and 15.25% in 2004) and more refusals fall within the scope of the six stipulated exemptions (compared with 25.34% in 2007 and 13.40% in 2006, 23.6% in 2005 and 6.5% in 2004). It indicates that the quality of requests or the public bod y’s capacity to handle FOI requests is increasing. (Shanghai Municipal Informational Commission, Shanghai Open Government Information Annual Report 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007).
Table 1 Data on Shanghai Open Government Information
Shanghai Open Government Information Annual Report 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007.
In the Chine context, the evolution of open government information surely demonstrates differences from democratic countries such as the United States. Moreover, China’s unique context make the implementation of China’s OGIR extremely challenging and emingly difficult to carry out. When switching attention to China’s OGIR, the following questions come into mind: what are the features of the evolution of China’s OGI? What differences exist between A merican FOIA and China’s ORIG? What challenges do China’s government agencies face?
Information Re gulation” (China’s OGIR), and the local regulations on open government information are called as “name of city, municipality etc. pulsing Open Government Information Regulation” such as Shanghai Municipal OGIR.
6Shanghai has special status as a provincial-level city directly under the central government and is called as a municipality (直辖市in simplified Chine). There are four municipalities in china, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing.
7In 2004, Shanghai ORIG only operated for eight months (form May 1 to December 31).
II. Historical development of open government information in China
1. The upri of open government information in China
Like many countries, China has a long well-entrenched tradition of government crecy. It is estimated that around 80% of uful information is possd by the Chine governments, among which almost 80% languishes in government files, an enormous waste of social resources (The Information Office of Fanchang County, 2007). This culture of government crecy has meant that government agencies act as a bottleneck for a free flow of economic, social and other information that would have facilitated continuous dynamic growth and development. Along with the economic booming and the increasingly social differentiation, China’s central government came to realize that the lack of transparency of government contributes to corruption, misallocation of resources and distrust of public institutions, so it is important to share information with the public to improve government transparency.
三位数的加减法
Sensitivity of the right to know in China 6 years ago
In China, the “right to know” does not appear in China’s Constitution and was claimed as one of the civil and political rights and as part of its human rights program (State Council Information Office, 2003). China’s rapid economic development and China’s entering World Trade Organization (WTO) i
n 1999 required China’s government to make government information transparent and therefore two campaigns were launched by central government-the informatization8of government affairs and open administrative affairs9. Therefore, in 2000, a Joint Directive of the Central Committee of People’s Republic of China and the State Council clearly addresd the people’s right to know and urged the government agencies at lower levels to formulate relative regulations and the complying institutions. Therefore, there were enormous official circulations and documents from top to bottom. However, this regulation was not welcomed by the bureaucrats, since the regulation could, to some extent but not very effectively, constrain agencies’ habitual abu of “state cre cy” to cover up their expenditures, programs as well as their policies, and documents. Obviously, at that time, the implementation was not very effective and was held back by bureaucrats’ resistance. Moreover, it was still nsitive to refer to the right to know, indicated by a real episode in 2002. The News Probe, a famous TV program in China, wanted to do a special program for its fifth anniversary, by collecting all big controversies in China, such as environment pollution, sandstorms, environmental damage and so on, that happened in past five years, and named the program as “you have the right to know”. However, just becau of the name-“you have the right to know”, this program was cancelled by nior related leaders even without having a look at the contents (Zhou Hanhua, 2008).
Turning point of open government information in China
小学生必备古诗词During the first ten years of the implementation of China’s Secrecy Law10, there were so many problems showing up to warn central government to revi it. In summary, the key problem of Secrecy
8Informatization is 信息化in simplified Chine.
9Open administrative affairs is 政务公开in simplified Chine.
日初出大如车盖10China’s Secrecy Law was announced on September 5, 1988 and put into effect on May 1, 1989.
v/News_View.asp?NewsID=1776
Law was that there were too many crets and almost everything was a cret. Realizing that the Secrecy Law should be adapted to the Reform and Opening Up policy, President Jiang Zemin stresd to keep crets needed to be controlled, and open information needed to be disclod. Since that time, crecy and openness have been proved as two sides of a problem or a contradictory phenomenon and open information stated to attract more attention from both the citizens and the government agencies. A working group was t up in 1999 within the Chine Academy of Social Sciences11to study such legislation and in 2001 it was committed by the Informat
ion Office of State Council12to draft China’s OGIR (Guang Ming News, 2006). In China, the Freedom of Information Act13of United States was translated into “情报自由法”. Duo to the nsitive meaning of “情报” and “自由”in China, “信息公开” was ud instead14. Finally, the concept of Open Government Information first appeared in official document-the Guidance on the Construction of E-government- in 2002(The General Office of CCP, 2002).
Tortuous development of open government information in China
China’s practices relating to open government information could be traced back to the area of publicizing government administrative affairs first at village level in the early 1980’s. The practice of disclosure of village administrative affairs was standardized only after the publication of the Organic Law of the Village Committee in 1988. A fter taking into account various experiences during the following decade, the General Office of the Central Committee, CPC15and the General Office of the State Council16clarified the importance of the disclosure of village administrative affairs in Joint Opinions on Perfecting Systems of Transparency in Village Affairs and a Democratic Administration System and then open government information in China has expanded in scale to areas such as urban affairs, police, inspections and etc. In 2000 and 2005, the above two General Offices respectively publicized a ries of documents on the issues, including Opinions Regarding Further 激励学生的话语
Steps to Promote Transparency of Government Affairs in Local Government at Town and Village Level and Opinions on Further Enforcing Government Administration Publication(The General Office of the Central Committee, CPC and the General Office of the State Council, 2005). Tho documents stresd
11Chine Academy of Social Sciences, 中国社会科学院in simplified Chine, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for the social sciences in Beijing. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It was founded in May1977 growing out of the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Chine Academy of Sciences.
12The Information Office of State Council was t up in 2001, with Zhu Rongji(朱镕基) as executive and Hu Jingtao(胡锦涛) as vice executive.
13The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United States. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 4, 1966 (Amended 2002), and went into effect the following y ear. This act allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unrelead information and documents controlled by the United States Government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure pr
ocedures and grants nine exemptions to the statute. en.wikipedia/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States)
妇产科出科小结
14“I nformation” has two meanings of “情报” and “信息”and “freedom” has two meanings of “自由” and “公开”in Chine.
15The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (simplified Chine: 中国共产党中央委员会), formerly as Central Executive Committee (simplified Chine: 中央执行委员会) before 1927, is the highest authority within the Communist Party of China elected by the Party National Congress. The Central Committee has about 300 members and nominally appoints the Politburo of the Communist Party of China.
16The General Office of the State Council is 国务院办公厅in simplified Chine. The State Council (simplified Chine: 国务院), which is largely sy nonymous with the Central People's Government (simplified Chine: 中央人民政府), is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the Premier and includes the heads of each governmental department and agency. There are about 50 members in the Council.
the significance of openness and the urge of open government information from the perspective of pr
omoting social democracy, enhancing social harmony, constructing a rule-by-law bad government, and preventing corruption at its resources.
Gradually, the open government information has been put on the agenda to meet the requirements of law-bad administration, management innovation, information needed for national informatization, and a transparent government. In recent years, central and local governments have successfully implemented open government information and announced a ries of relevant legal documents. So far, almost all government agencies directly under the State Council have publicized regulations on information disclosure on their own. At local government level, Guangzhou city, a pioneer in announcing local regulations on open government information, promulgated the Guangzhou Municipal OGIR on November 6, 2002 and placed it in effect on January 1, 2003, and this example was followed by many other cities. Cities, especially, like Shanghai and Wuhan have developed a sound annual reporting system on open government information. The relevant practices performed by departments under the State Council and local governments have, on the one hand, improved government’s capacity to disclo government information on its own initiative and gained a plenty of experiences, while, on the other hand, they have built up a favorable impetus for the promulgation of the national OGIR (China’s OGIR).
2. History of legislation on open government information in China
A working group was t up in 1999 within the Chine Academy of Social Sciences to study the legislation on China’s OGIR and in 2001, it was committed by the Information Office of State Council to draft the regulation, guided by a decision from the State Informatization Leading Group (SILG)17of the Information Office of the State Council. At the end of 2002, the Regulation was put in the legislation schedule of the State Council as a legislative investigation program and was arranged under the jurisdiction of the State Council Legislative Affairs Office (SC-LAO)18. Moreover, in November 2002, the State Informatization Leading Group (SILG), in the Guiding Opinions on Constructing E-Government, addresd its strong determination to formulate regulation related to open government information. The State Council, in its Guidelines for Building a Government by Law 2004, considered three tiers of information disclosure as crucial to the fulfillment of a law-oriented administration: administrative decision-making, administration, and government information. In 2005, the General Office of the Central Committee, CPC and the General Office of the State Council prented their connsus on accelerating the formulation of the Opinions on Further Enforcing Government Administration Publication. In 2006, SC-LAO promoted and held workshops on open government information under the support of the EU-China Information Society Project in order to ga
in lessons from European Union states. On January 17, 2007, China’s OGIR was finally approved at the 165th Executive Meeting of the State Council, announcing its publication on April 5, 2007 and its effective date on May 1, 2008. (Wang Yijun, 2007; Yang Huayun, 2007; Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2008 ).
3. Features of the development of open government information in China
17The State Informatization Leading Group (SILG) is 国家信息化领导小组in simplified Chine.
18The State Council Legislative Affairs Office (SC-LAO) is 国务院法制办in simplified Chine.
