Wang Tinghui: Standardize Government Conduct Scales to Promote the Construction of a Unified National Market
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "To advance the construction of a national unified large market in depth, the basic requirements are 'five unifications and one openness'." Among these, unifying the scales of government behavior is a crucial aspect. Currently, practical issues such as the poor flow of factors, local protectionism, and market fragmentation, which affect the progress of building a national unified large market, largely stem from inconsistent scales of behavior among local governments, differing standards of policy implementation, and deviations in the execution process. The key to unifying the scales of government behavior lies in establishing rules, defining boundaries, setting standards, and clarifying responsibilities for government actions. It is necessary to clear the bottlenecks and blockages obstructing market integration through unified standards, collaborative implementation, and unified supervision, thereby advancing the construction of a national unified large market in depth.
Define Institutional Yardsticks for Government Behavior
Strengthen source control and unify the negative lists for policy formulation. Uniformity at the source is the key to eliminating differences in local government behavior and maintaining consistency in scale. To prevent local governments from setting up hidden entry barriers and to avoid "local policies" [1] or "local thresholds" from obstructing the construction of a national unified large market, there is an urgent need to unify the negative lists for policy formulation. This will clarify prohibited clauses for local governments in areas such as market access, industrial subsidies, tax incentives, financing support, and special assistance. By strictly prohibiting the abuse of administrative power to issue policies and measures that exclude or restrict competition, and by strictly preventing local governments from using government investment funds to provide disguised subsidies to sectors with overcapacity, we can rectify "involutionary" [2] vicious competition at its root. Simultaneously, policy discrimination must be curbed at the source; all local regulations, rules, and normative documents concerning the construction of a national unified large market must undergo fairness reviews and legality audits.
Control key links and unify standards for public resource trading. Government procurement connects government demand with market supply; it is the nodal interface where government behavior meets market operations, and an area where inconsistent scales of government behavior are prone to occur frequently. We should accelerate the formulation of national unified standards for public resource trading, clarifying important content such as bidding processes, evaluation rules, and contract templates to eliminate "local priority" and "black-box operations." It is essential to prohibit the setting of "local performance records" or "specific suppliers" and other such "thresholds" and "clauses" that hinder fair competition. Furthermore, we must accelerate the construction of a national unified system for public resource trading to promote the market-based allocation of various resource factors and ensure that all types of market entities participate in competition fairly, forcing a shift in government behavior from "selecting specific enterprises" to "defining fair rules."
Reduce discretionary power and unify the scale of market regulation and law enforcement. Applying the same penalties for the same cases in law enforcement is an important guarantee for achieving fair market competition. Similar or identical illegal acts of the same degree may face penalties that are "unusually light or heavy" across different regions, and may even lead to selective or profit-driven enforcement. Inconsistency in the scale of enforcement interferes with the normal expectations of market entities and damages the function of the institutional framework in stabilizing expectations. Guidelines for enforcement in key areas should be formulated—targeting high-frequency enforcement matters such as anti-monopoly, anti-unfair competition, and intellectual property protection—to clarify standards for identifying violations, penalty tiers, and discretionary benchmarks. While reducing the scope for discretion, a guiding system for enforcement cases should be promoted; the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Justice should release typical cases to provide relatively unified enforcement references for local authorities.
Establish Cross-Regional and Cross-Departmental Synergy Mechanisms
Improve cross-regional policy synergy mechanisms. We must strengthen the alignment and linkage of regional coordinated development strategies, taking the lead in promoting institutional innovation and policy synergy pilots in regions such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. We should establish policy coordination mechanisms between provincial governments to jointly formulate and simultaneously implement industrial and factor-flow policies related to common regional development. At the same time, a policy differentiation adjustment mechanism should be established; for local policies that truly need to be retained due to differing stages of regional development, application boundaries and transition methods should be clarified through consultation. For example, differences in environmental standards between ecological functional zones and economically developed areas can be addressed through ecological compensation mechanisms to ensure "standards differ but fairness remains undiminished."
Strengthen cross-departmental administrative connection and cooperation. "Overlapping responsibilities" and "shirking or buck-passing" between departments are significant reasons for the inconsistent scales of government behavior. It is necessary to sort through high-frequency administrative matters related to the construction of the national unified large market, formulate departmental synergy lists, and clarify the specific duties and behavioral boundaries of lead and cooperating units. Since the cross-regional migration of enterprises involves market regulation, taxation, social security, and other departments, it is necessary to unify handling processes and compress processing times to prevent departmental barriers from making it "difficult for enterprises to move." Additionally, relying on the national integrated government service platform, we must unify service standards across different regions and departments to achieve cross-regional and cross-departmental data sharing and business synergy.
Optimize the orientation of local government evaluations. To prevent "short-sighted" behavior caused by local governments "prioritizing the local over the global," the performance appraisal system for local governments must be optimized. This involves weakening quantity-oriented standards such as GDP and investment promotion while strengthening quality-oriented standards such as market integration and factor mobility. "Breaking local protectionism" and "implementing national unified large market policies" should be incorporated into the performance evaluations of local governments, with a "one-vote veto" [3] applied to regions where market fragmentation and policy discrimination exist. Simultaneously, adhering to the principle of "the whole country as a single chessboard" [4], a regional synergistic development appraisal mechanism should be established to assess the effectiveness of ecological protection and industrial cooperation between neighboring provinces, guiding local governments to shift from acting in isolation toward synergistic development.
Strengthen Full-Chain Supervision of Government Behavior
Ensure early detection by building a normalized monitoring and early warning mechanism. Timely discovery of implementation deviations is key to preventing an imbalance in scales. We need to establish a national unified monitoring platform for government behavior, using big data technology to capture real-time data on local policies, public resource trading, and enforcement cases, and identifying abnormal behaviors through algorithmic models. If a local government issues an industrial subsidy policy, the system should automatically check if it conforms to national unified standards. For the results of penalties in certain types of cases, the system should automatically analyze whether "different penalties for the same case" exist. Meanwhile, the "direct-express" mechanism for enterprise feedback should be optimized, creating a "Market Fragmentation Reporting Zone" on platforms such as the 12345 government service hotline and the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System to collect issues reported by various market entities through multiple channels, thereby building a "technical monitoring + social supervision" early warning system.
Ensure timely handling by improving cross-level and cross-regional correction mechanisms. A "graded disposal" mechanism should be established to precisely correct discrepancies in the scale of government behavior discovered through monitoring. For minor violations, superior departments should urge rectification through "reminder letters" or "regulatory talks." For serious violations of the regulations on the national unified large market, central departments should correct them by revoking or ordering the revision of relevant policies. If a local government restricts non-local enterprises from participating in government procurement via "red-headed documents" [5], the Ministry of Finance can directly order the abolition of the document. Additionally, a cross-regional collaborative correction mechanism should be established; for market fragmentation issues involving multiple locations, superior departments should lead joint investigations and coordinate unified rectification standards among all parties.
Enforce strict accountability by improving the guarantee mechanism for responsibility implementation. The key to effective supervision lies in establishing and improving accountability mechanisms. We should explore the formulation of the "Measures for Accountability regarding Behaviors Obstructing the National Unified Large Market," clarifying the circumstances and procedures for holding local governments and relevant staff accountable for market fragmentation, policy discrimination, and unfair enforcement. For those who create "small circles" [6] or "small circulations" that lead to regional market fragmentation, not only should the direct responsible persons be held accountable, but the primary leadership of the local government should also be investigated. Simultaneously, a positive incentive mechanism should be established; regions that achieve significant results in unifying the scales of government behavior and promoting market integration should receive preferential policy support in areas such as central fiscal transfer payments and the layout of reform pilots, encouraging governments at all levels to consciously abide by unified scales and actively promote the construction of market integration.