The Chinese leadership, under President Xi Jinping, emphasizes a correct understanding of governance performance to bolster the legitimacy of the Communist Party, ensure sustainable development, and promote the Chinese model as an effective alternative to the Western approach, particularly in the pursuit of reshaping the global governance system towards multilateralism and establishing a community with a shared future for mankind. The reasons for this Chinese focus can be summarized as follows: (Offering an alternative for development and politics) China seeks to portray its model as a highly efficient authoritarian model that links economic success with political advantages, making it attractive to developing countries in the face of Western criticism. Furthermore, China’s long-term strategy for reforming global governance is through its Global Governance Initiative. China aims to address the global governance deficit and reform the existing international system to be more equitable and just, serving the interests of developing countries and the Global South. As China attempts to address global challenges, its vision of global governance emerges as a response to escalating crises and a turbulent international system. China proposes its own model of governance based on the principles of development, security, civilization, and governance.
The Chinese leadership emphasizes a correct understanding of governance performance to ensure alignment with the Communist Party’s vision, achieve political stability and economic growth, and promote its development model as an alternative to Western opposition. This understanding is reinforced through the recalibration of officials’ performance, linking promotions to actual results, and ideological campaigns to ensure absolute loyalty to the central leadership. The Chinese leadership emphasizes a correct understanding of governance performance for several reasons, most importantly: (1) to enhance the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China by linking good governance to the Party’s ability to realize the Chinese Dream and counter Western criticism, presenting its model as highly efficient; (2) to shift from quantitative to qualitative growth by focusing on sustainable governance, green development, and innovation rather than solely on GDP figures; and (3) to ensure discipline and loyalty to the Chinese state and its Communist Party and to guarantee that officials at all levels meticulously implement the directives of the Central Committee without any individual actions that could affect the stability of the system. This leads to competition against Western models by promoting the Chinese model as a successful alternative, especially in developing countries, which undermines Western liberal influence.
Through its governance workshops, China seeks to disseminate a diverse range of available tools and create a link between its economic success and political advantages. This aims to enhance the image of Beijing’s model of good governance globally, particularly in the Global South, and to forge a Chinese path toward a more balanced global governance.
The correct understanding of governance performance is embedded into the daily behavior of Chinese officials, and there are many examples, according to my own opinion and experience of seeing how Chinese officials do. Especially, the Chinese leadership emphasizes a correct understanding of governance performance to ensure absolute alignment with the Communist Party’s directives and to enhance efficiency in achieving sustainable economic development and social stability. This is evident daily in the strict adherence of Chinese officials to centrally set goals and their high focus on achieving measurable results (KPIs) in development, all while being subject to rigorous oversight to ensure policy implementation. The Chinese leadership emphasizes a correct understanding of governance for several reasons, most importantly (party legitimacy): to solidify the authority of the Communist Party of China as the sole and guiding force of the state; (realizing the Chinese Dream): to build a modern and strong socialist country and a developed economy; and (stability and discipline): to avoid chaos and ensure the effective implementation of central decisions by local governments.
Here, governance is manifested in the daily conduct of Chinese officials through centralization and adherence: through the literal implementation of directives from the central leadership in Beijing, under whose supervision local governments operate with high efficiency. With a culture of measurable goals, officials are evaluated based on tangible results, such as GDP growth rates, attracting investment, reducing pollution, or maintaining social stability. This is especially true under the umbrella of digital governance and oversight, which facilitates monitoring all officials in China. By using technology for monitoring and transparency in service delivery, and by applying strict performance controls, the performance and oversight of all officials can be improved.
As an example of how Chinese officials operate (from a public-seen perspective), this is clearly evident in how they handle environmental crises or urban development. When the central leadership sets a goal such as reducing carbon emissions in a specific region, the local official develops a detailed action plan, allocates specific budgets, and imposes hefty fines on non-compliant factories. The official may be punished or transferred if they fail to meet the targets, thus motivating them to focus intensely on achieving these results.
This is ingrained in the daily conduct of Chinese officials through recalibrating the evaluation of officials, whereby performance evaluation criteria are modified to include indicators of sustainable development, social stability, and the environment, not just economic growth. This is accompanied by organizing numerous workshops and ideological training for Chinese employees and officials, including intensive workshops to enhance the Chinese leadership’s understanding of good governance and link it to the political advantages of the authoritarian system, as noted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It is further reinforced by strict accountability, using anti-corruption campaigns and administrative reforms to promote discipline, with officials held accountable for any failure to achieve governance goals. With a focus on (China’s wisdom), officials are instructed to adopt Chinese concepts, such as building a community with a shared future for mankind, in their international and domestic activities.
