The development of China’s public administration education

Abstract

China’s practices and knowledge of administrative sciences have a long history, but modern public administration, as a relatively new discipline, has been established for less than a century. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the historical development of modern public administration education in China. This paper reviews and analyzes the development of China’s modern public administration education in two different periods, namely, before and after reform and the opening up of China. Finally, it dissects the current problems and challenges facing China’s public administration from an academic perspective and considers possible future trends for modern public administration in China.

Keywords

China public administration education research discipline history

Introduction

In the last decades, the People’s Republic of China (hereafter, China) has obtained increasing worldwide attention in the fields of economic development and global affairs by deepening and promoting its policies of reform and openness; it has also increased its influence on the economic and geopolitical situation in Asia and indeed, the world (Gulrajani and Moloney, 2012; Xue, 2012). With improvements in China’s economic and political strength and the unprecedented enhancement of its international standing, Chinese politics and administration have also become widely discussed topics in international public administration circles. In comparison, there is a significant amount of literature on Chinese politics and economics but there are not many published English-language studies on Chinese public administration. In fact, the international community has not focused sufficiently on the historical development of China’s modern public administration. In order to fill this gap, the main purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the historical development of modern public administration in China.

Although China’s practices and knowledge of public administration have a long history, its modern public administration, as a relatively new discipline, has been established for less than a century. Near the end of the 19th century, China first learned modern public administration or administrative sciences from the Western world as did other neighboring Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea (Minakuchi, 2006; Xu, 2007). However, the development of the social sciences, including political science and public administration, was suspended by the establishment of the new socialist regime and the following Cultural Revolution. After that, as China entered its age of reform and openness under Deng Xiaoping’s leadership (Deng, 1994), public administration education recovered gradually and expanded over the years.

Since then, under the strong influence of economic and social development, China’s modern public administration has become an important force in actively promoting worldwide development of public administration as an independent discipline, founding professional institutions and academic organizations, establishing a complete degree system, and extending the education of public servants. Accordingly, this article begins with a theoretical discussion on modernization, followed by a historical overview and discussion of the development of China’s modern public administration based on two different periods: before and after reform and opening-up. Finally, this article discusses emerging challenges and implications, followed by concluding remarks.

Modernization and diffusion

Chinese society is changing at a breathtaking rate of development as it undergoes modernization, including industrialization and urbanization. China’s rapid economic growth, modernization, and globalization have led to incredible social changes. However, modernization is not easy to define owing to the complexity of the associated changes as well as the wide variety of ways in which nations have achieved progress. According to modernization theory (Bernstein, 1971; Grasso et al., 2009; Inglehart and Welzel, 2005; So, 1990; Tipps, 1973), modernization generally refers to progress from a traditional or pre-modern to a modern society. It could also be defined as the process by which societies move from an agrarian base to industrial structures of living via the application of science, technology, and rational ideas. Elements commonly associated with such restructuring of the social order include sustained economic growth, functional specialization, increased public education, an increasing reliance on bureaucracy, and enhanced quality of life (Grasso et al., 2009). Nonetheless, such a discussion on modernization remains controversial because one size does not fit all.

Many countries in the process of industrialization have emulated various systems that originated outside their borders, from the earliest modernizers to developing countries. Likewise, the Chinese adopted various systems and modern ideas from advanced Western nations, a phenomenally wide range of new institutions, manufacturing methods, and communications technologies in a successful effort to convert their country into a modern nation (Christensen et al., 2008, 2012; Grasso et al., 2009; Jacka et al., 2013; Westney, 1987). The onset of modernization certainly brought revolution to China. Revolutions bring about radical changes in the economic and political order of a country. During the communist revolutionary periods, the Russian system of education and industry, among others, also significantly influenced China.

During the post-Mao period, the Western influence, as a rational response to the pressures of the international environment and to the inherent demands of industrialization and urbanization, has prevailed in most aspects of Chinese life, including education, administration, and business. In education, for example, two of the key concepts regarding the cultivation of citizens have been wenming (civilization) and suzhi (quality). The word wenming is invoked during campaigns to encourage the population at large to behave in a more civilized manner. Government officials also commonly invoke the word suzhi when discussing the means of improving the quality of the population (Jacka et al., 2013). In fact, development or diffusion may start from imitation and such imitation may eventually lead to innovation. Where cross-social diffusion is concerned, however, the distinctions between imitation and innovation might be false dichotomies because the successful imitation of foreign ideas may require innovation. Moreover, selective emulation can occur when the new system builders try to avoid certain limitations that become evident in the original model. At the center of current Chinese history is an ongoing struggle between the forces of modernity and the pull of tradition. Some elements of Chinese civilization were prepared for change, others resisted it, and still other indigenous aspects of Chinese culture interacted with outside stimuli to produce new elements (Grasso et al., 2009).

The development of China’s public administration education

The development of China’s modern public administration will be examined in two different periods, namely, before and after reform and the opening-up of China. The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) brought China’s education system to a virtual halt for several years. After Mao’s death in 1976, however, reformers led by Deng Xiaoping began to dismantle the old policies associated with the Cultural Revolution.

China’s public administration before reform and the opening-up

Although China’s administrative practices and knowledge have a long history, modern public administration as a relatively new discipline in the country has existed for less than a century and was introduced by countries abroad. In 1895, in fact, after China was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895),¹ Chinese students were sent abroad in batches, beginning with Japan (Sun, 2006). Japan was chosen for two reasons. First, the defeat caused China to take notice of the newly rising Japan and generally the need to obtain advanced knowledge from that country. Second, compared with Europe and the US, travel to Japan was less costly and Japanese written characters were close to Chinese characters and thus easy to understand.² From 1896 to 1937, before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), no fewer than 50,000 Chinese students had studied in Japan (Sanetou, 1983: 1). Chinese students who studied in Japan at that time played vitally important roles in politics, military affairs, literature, art, and other fields. Representative students include Chiang Kai Shek, former President of the Republic of China; Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, primary founders of the Chinese Communist Party; Cai E and Huang Xing, famous militarists; and Lu Xun, a famous litterateur. Many researchers believe that the Revolution of 1911,³ which buried the Qing Dynasty, would not have occurred if it had not been for ambitious Chinese students studying in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century (Li, 2006). Of the 328 known revolutionaries involved in the Revolution of 1911, 285 (86.9%) studied in Japan (Wang, 1992: 205).

Therefore, regarding administrative systems and knowledge, Japan was the first nation to attract China’s attention. Along with many new Japanese words and phrases, the phrase “public administration” came to China around 1897. However, given that “public administration” in Japan at that time was actually administrative law before the 1930s, nearly all efforts in China were in the area of administrative law without a trace of actual public administration, which was simply a term.⁴

Therefore, the subject of modern public administration in China was primarily introduced by the US in the 1930s and 1940s.⁵ During that period, modern public administration in China saw unprecedented development. It is important to note that the Republic of China was first established after thousands of years of imperial rule. The country faced confused documentary archive management, ineffectively run government organizations, and other problems and thus was desperate for the support of public administration. From the perspective of disciplinary development, the growth of public administration was driven by the rapid development of political science and the early introduction of municipal science, which is closely related to public administration (Yang, 2004: 23–61). The development of public administration as a discipline during this period reflects several characteristics.

Initially, the mainstream study of public administration turned to the US. In December 1907, US President Theodore Roosevelt announced in Congress that the US would remit half of the Boxer Indemnity⁶ to help the Chinese government send Chinese students to study in the US (Tsinghua University History Drafting Group, 1981: 4). The US remittance of the Boxer Indemnity to subsidize Chinese students in the US led directly to a wave of Chinese students studying there. In 1912, 79 Chinese students were studying in the US; that number grew to 190 in 1914, with more than 200 per year from 1915 to 1931 (excluding 1916–1917), reaching a maximum of 403 students in 1922 (Wang, 1992: 205). In 1932, Chinese students studying in the US represented 27.4% of all Chinese students studying abroad; in 1946, the proportion reached 88.8% on a year-by-year basis. A total of 2789 Chinese students obtained doctoral degrees from 1905 to 1960, accounting for 15% of the doctoral degrees awarded in each of those years in the US (Tung-li, 1961: 239).

In the 1930s and 1940s, China had approximately 70 universities, with more than 50 presidents who had studied in the US, including Chiang Monlin and Hu Shi of Peking University, Luo Jialun and Mei Yi-qi of Tsinghua University, Chang Po-ling of Nankai University, Coching Chu of Zhejiang University, Hu Ming-fu of Southeast University, Mao Yisheng of Peiyang University, Ren Hong-jun of Sichuan University, Wu Yifang of the University of Nanking, and Yang Yin-yu of Peking Women’s Normal University (Li, 2003, 2006).

Apart from studying in the US, administrative scientists went to China for academic activities. From 1913 to 1915, the famous political scientist and public administration scholar Frank Johnson Goodnow (1859–1939) went to China and acted as a constitutional adviser to the Yuan Shikai government for approximately one year. Yuan (a Chinese general and politician during the late Qing Dynasty) had hired Goodnow at the recommendation of the then-president of Harvard University. In 1914, Goodnow published an essay entitled “Educational theory on China’s officials” during his stay in China and advanced the concept of creating China’s first administrative school (Que, 2004).

From approximately the 1920s on, several scholars studying in the US and Britain returned to China. Around 1930, nearly all the directors of political science departments at Chinese universities were political scientists who had studied in the US. Most of the full-time and part-time teachers in political science departments were also students who had returned from the US and Britain, with the majority coming from the US (Sun, 2005: 399–403). Most of the faculty members of the political science department at Peking University from 1898 to 1926, conversely, were students who had studied in Japan. External faculty members at that time also came from Japan and Europe. However, after 1927, most faculty members were scholars who had studied in the US, with fewer students coming back from Japan. Early public administration works published in China were written by scholars returning from the US. For example, the author of Principles of Public Administration, published in 1933, was Jiang Kangli, who studied at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University in the US and was awarded a master’s degree in political science.⁷ The author of Outline of Public Administration, published in 1935, was Lin Die, who had a doctorate from New York University. Zhang Jinjian, author of Theory and Practice of Public Administration, also published in 1935, had a master’s in political science from Stanford University. A total of 41 Chinese doctors of political science studied in the US, among whom 24 wrote doctoral dissertations about public administration from 1911 to 1937 (Tung-li, 1961: 239).

Second, the rise of public administration in China during this period can also be seen in the development of new college courses. Although public administration was not an independent discipline at that time, well-known universities, such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, Nankai University, Yenching University, National Central University, Wuhan University, and Hunan University, began offering courses in public administration around 1930 (Xu and Se, 2003). The courses offered during this period were largely affected by the US. The evolution of the political science department at Peking University is a typical example. The course offerings in political disciplines at Peking University were created by imitating the political science courses at Tokyo Imperial University. Japan at that time was largely influenced by the disciplinary system of Germany. The German pattern, developed by students returning from Japan, was publicly criticized by some of the scholars who had returned from the US. Students returning from the US and Britain—particularly the US—completed a new round of curriculum reform in the political science department of Peking University in the 1920s. In the 1930s, the political science department of Peking University made great improvements in its course content. From 1932 to 1933, the department replaced its particular stress on law and the economy with an emphasis on the link between political science and each relevant social science (Sun, 2005: 399–400). The courses absorbed the new reform spirit of US public administration in the 1920s and combined it with China’s actual situation, making them renowned throughout China (Xu, 2007:147–153, 166–177).

Third, at the same time that scholars of public administration introduced foreign theories and systems, they began to focus on the administrative problems in China. Translations were an important publication form in China’s public administration in the 1930s. Representative textbook translations include General Public Administration (published in 1930) and Theory on Administrative Organization (published in 1934) by Royama Masamichi (an instructor at the Imperial University of Tokyo at the time), Trends in Public Administration (published in 1935) and Introduction to the Study of Public Administration (published in 1940) by Leonard D. White (1891–1958) and The US’ Study on Administrative Efficiency (published in 1937) by Luther Gulick (1892–1993). Chinese authors also compiled an extensive amount of new content but they seemed to focus primarily on the civil service system in the West.

Personnel administration and local administration also received attention. Representative publications of the time include An Introduction to Public Administration (1932) by Zhang Jinjian, Outline of Personnel Administration (1937) by Xue Bokang, New Issues of China’s Personnel Administration (1945) by Huang Jingbai, and Local Administration of Harsh Times (1937) by Shang Chuandao. During that period, China’s administrative systems, the actual running of China’s local governments, the renaissance experiment with agriculture in China, and enhancing the government’s administrative efficiency were the primary subjects studied by China’s administrative scholars.

Following the initial steps of the 1930s, public administration developed rapidly in the 1940s, as evidenced by the list of public administration texts published during that decade (Yu, 2012). The trend continued through 1949, when socialist China was established. After this time, Peking University, Nanjing University, Nankai University, Sun Yat-sen University, Xiamen University, and other universities reformed their courses, changing public administration courses to courses on “administrative organization and management,” a subject emphasized and welcomed by the field of political science for its strong applications.

In 1952, the Chinese government made college- and department-level adjustments modeled after the higher education system of the Soviet Union. With the help of experts from the Soviet Union, a number of colleges (engineering, agriculture, medicine, education, etc.) gained independence and additional independent colleges (politics and law, finance and economy, foreign languages, forestry, chemical engineering, geology, aviation, mining, machinery, etc.) emerged.⁸ Unfortunately, political science was criticized for being a “bourgeois pseudoscience” at that time and the college was dismantled, interrupting academic research (Qian, 1991: 699; Xie, 1999: 76–78). The adjustment resulted in particular stress on engineering and ideological education and weakened the humanities and social sciences. In 1947, among China’s colleges and universities, students in the school of politics and law accounted for 24% of the student body; in 1952, this percentage dropped to 2%; and in 1962, it only accounted for 0.46% (Chen, 2003). If we take political science as an example, in 1948, nearly 50 out of 200 universities had political science departments throughout the country; the courses covered not only political theory, comparative politics, international politics, Chinese politics, and the like, but also included public administration courses with stronger operability. In the 30 years that followed, however, because of the absence of politics and public administration research, many important topics were not seriously studied; consequently, the state developed a certain long-term blindness (Zhao, 2000).

Notably, it was not until 1979, when Deng Xiaoping commented “we [in Mainland China] have ignored the study of politics, law, sociology, and world politics for many years and now we need to make up for the missed lessons” (Deng, 1994: 180–181) that many social sciences, including public administration, came to light again. Since then, those social sciences have gradually recovered and developed.

China’s public administration after reform and the opening-up

The recovery and reestablishment of public administration research and education after the reform and opening-up were primarily promoted by the Chinese government and academia (Huang and Liu, 1988). Based on the essence of Deng Xiaoping’s speech, the Chinese Association of Political Science (CAPS) was established in Beijing in December 1980 (Wang and Wang, 1996) and in 1981, Fudan University enrolled undergraduates in a political science major (Lin, 1998). To quickly develop a faculty of political science, CAPS held a workshop on political science at Fudan University in Shanghai and included public administration among the courses.⁹ In the following year, CAPS held a political science workshop in Jinan. Those two core-teaching courses played a significant role in promoting the recovery of China’s political science research and education and laid the foundation for launching the study of public administration. In 1985, CAPS held a workshop focused on “public administration” for the first time in Hunan. After a significant amount of preparation and a series of plans, Zhengzhou University and Wuhan University obtained approval from the Ministry of Education in 1986 to begin enrolling undergraduates in a public administration major. In 1987, Renmin University of China founded the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) and began offering a master’s degree in this discipline.

At the initial redevelopment stage of public administration research and education in China, the government played an essential promotional role. The Chinese government’s active promotion of public administration research and education had a lengthy historical background. After succeeding Chairman Mao, Deng Xiaoping initiated economic reforms and the old political and administrative systems were found to be lacking (Chinese Public Administration Society, 2002: 383–388). To successfully promote economic reform, starting in the early 1980s, administrative reform was attempted with an emphasis on reorganization through merging departments with similar functions, downsizing government employment, upgrading the quality of personnel, and delegating power to localities. In August 1984, a seminar on public administration was held in Jilin City, sponsored by the General Office of the State Council and the Ministry of Labor and Personnel, which greatly promoted the establishment of public administration as an independent academic discipline (Wang, 2001).

In 1988, the Chinese Public Administration Society (2002) was established and placed under the General Office of the State Council.¹⁰ By founding provincial public administration societies, the nationwide academic body for public administration forcefully promoted the formation of an academic group for China’s public administrators and the domestic and overseas exchange of education and research. The development of China’s public administration also includes China’s National School of Administration (currently called the Chinese Academy of Governance), a related public administration institute with an official background founded in 1994. With the founding of administrative institutes that were subordinate to central and local governments, the schools of administration formed a huge network for public administration education and research independent of higher education institutions and became the promotional force behind the development of China’s public administration throughout the 1990s.

With joint efforts from the government and academic circles, public administration finally became an independent discipline by the end of the 1990s. Major higher education institutions initiated master’s and PhD programs, marking the point at which China’s higher education had formed a complete system for modern public administration education from undergraduate to doctoral levels, and entered its second stage of rapid development. During this period, international academic exchange played an important role in the recovery and development of Chinese public administration as an academic discipline and such exchanges were diverse in nature.

Current situation of public administration education in China

Overall, public administration in China was in the initial stage of discipline formation from the 1980s to the mid-1990s. During that period, Chinese public administration gradually established a bachelor’s–master’s education system (Lin and Ling, 2012). After becoming an independent discipline in the late 1990s, however, public administration started to build a complete education system. Initially, the right to confer doctorates effectively caused a boom in public administration education and research in China. On the one hand, the availability of a doctorate not only forced China’s higher education institutions to build a complete public administration education system, from the bachelor’s level to the doctoral level, but it also produced opportunities to conduct scholarly public administration research in China. On the other hand, the development of doctoral education made public administration scholars greatly improve research quality in the field of public administration (Ma, 2012).

Another landmark event in Chinese public administration education was the development of a Master of Public Administration (MPA) program. In China, an MPA differs from an academic master’s degree. Instead, it is a professional degree for experienced in-service staff engaged in the public sector. A total of 223 higher education institutions were granted the authority to offer an MPA degree and 82,900 people were awarded MPA degrees nationwide between 1999, when higher education institutions were officially approved to offer professional MPA degrees, and July 2015. An MPA degree, on the one hand, is an important channel to enhance the training and promote the capacity of civil servants (Dong, 2015; Han et al., 2013). On the other hand, it greatly promotes the effects of public administration in government, enhances the social reputation of public administration, and further advances the quality of research in the field of public administration and its capacity to satisfy social demands. An MPA education has been effective because it requires China’s administrative scholars to understand how the real world relates to public administration in China. Otherwise, they would have difficulty teaching their students, who are administrative practitioners from the “real” world. China’s administrative scholars thus acquired opportunities for contact with real-world practice through teaching interactions, which invariably moved Chinese administrative research toward the real world (Ma, 2012).

Emerging challenges and implications

Public administration education in China has developed rapidly, but encountered numerous challenges in terms of public administration research and related areas. In fact, a number of junior Chinese scholars reviewed many articles published in China in 2005 and criticized the quality and the methodology as weak (Fan and Lou, 2013; Ma et al., 2009). Pre-2005 reflections are predominantly speculative analyses whose points of view remain shaped by a perceptual cognition that lacks the support of empirical data. In contrast, post-2005 reflections are more intensive and are based on survey research and quantitative assessments that produce more persuasive conclusions (Chen and Li, 2009; Huang, 2012; Jing, 2009; Ma et al., 2009; Wang, 2015; Wang and Tan, 2013; Yan and Cai, 2008).

Public administration research faces two internal challenges, namely, normalization and indigenization (He, 2007, 2009; Lan, 2014; Ma, 2012, 2013). The first of these issues, normalization, refers to abiding by basic criteria for a variety of research topics in the social sciences (Ye, 2012; Yu and Zhang, 2010). Overall, papers published in Chinese academic journals regarding public administration have been predominantly descriptive studies based on speculation, while empirical studies based on experience have been rare. Some studies have failed to abide by the most fundamental academic code in terms of bibliographic citation (Chen, 2008). According to the results of an analysis by He Yanling (2007), among the 2729 papers published in major Chinese public administration journals from 1995 to 2005, papers “without bibliographic citation or theoretical dialogue” accounted for nearly half (43.6%), papers with bibliographic citations but without theoretical dialog accounted for 41.6%, and 94% of the papers failed to apply statistics. Lv et al. (2012) analyzed crisis management research papers published in mainstream public administration journals in China from 2001 to 2011 and found that studies in Chinese public administration scholarship were generally limited to descriptions of phenomena and experiences that lacked a theoretical framework and supporting data, thus damaging the persuasive power of their explanations and conclusions.

The second issue is indigenization (Xu and Xu, 2012; Zhou, 2012; Zhu, 2013). For more than three decades, Chinese public administration scholarship has built a basic structure for the discipline and noted that Western theories and Chinese situations are compatible. As a result, a theory of indigenization that is able to interpret the Chinese experience has emerged. However, such efforts have not yielded desirable results and many studies have remained replications or inspections of Western theories or models in a new scenario. Few theoretical studies based on indigenization have been performed or extended (Dong, 2015: 301–302). Furthermore, Chinese scholars have not been fully consistent in their points of view in the pursuit of indigenization. According to He Yanling (2009), Chinese public administration scholarship must establish a Chinese public administration model and define it as “a public administration of Chinese style, manner, and criterion.” In contrast, Yu Jianxing and Jianmin Zhang (2010) recommend against either an orientation toward Western countries or a “China-orientation.” Those scholars call for the study of “public administration in China,” not “Chinese public administration” (Yu and Zhang, 2010). They propose two approaches for resolving the dilemma of indigenization: 1. take the perspective of international comparison, highlight international bibliographic research, and enhance cooperation with different states and regions in indigenous research to make better judgments about the peculiarity and universality of indigenous Chinese administration; and 2. refer to theoretical constructions and innovations based on indigenous phenomena rather than theories that lack common significance for interpreting and teaching China-specific public administration practices. Therefore, theories based on indigenous phenomena should contribute to the development of knowledge in international public administration.

Changing social values also affect the development of Chinese public administration. From the late 1970s through the beginning of the 21st century, the emphasis on economic development and value orientation has been “efficiency or growth first.” This efficiency drive has propelled China’s rapid and continuous economic development over the past 30-plus years. However, a number of socioeconomic problems such as pollution, economic and social discrepancies, and social tensions have emerged (Holzer and Zhang, 2009). Facing such new challenges, there is a growing need for Chinese public administration scholarship to research and interpret the meanings and implications of social values such as social equity, justice, participation, and public interests to promote the development of public administration as an independent academic discipline (Dong, 2015: 295–296).

Conclusions

Despite the longstanding administrative practices and education of public administrators in China, modern public administration with disciplinary significance in higher education is less than 100 years old. Over the years, the Chinese government and academia established public-administration-related courses in colleges and universities, substantially translated and introduced textbooks and systems of public administration from Europe (Tang and Yuan, 2004) and the US, and studied a variety of problems in Chinese administrative practice. However, that development was halted with the founding of the new socialist regime in China and academic discipline adjustments in institutions of higher education for a number of years until the reform and the opening-up period of China.

Since reform and the opening-up, the Chinese government has needed to reform its administrative systems to accommodate high-speed and sustained economic development. Against that background, Chinese public administration education and research have developed rapidly through the efforts of both the government and academia. Major achievements include public administration becoming an independent discipline, colleges and universities establishing schools of public administration, and central and local governments establishing schools of administration to train civil servants enabling them to become key forces driving the development of public administration in China. An academic education system from bachelor’s degrees to doctorates in public administration has been established and an MPA program targeted at civil servants has been developed.

In spite of its development, however, public administration in China still faces numerous problems in the areas of research and education. In terms of research, Chinese public administration scholarship needs to raise the degree of professionalization and specialization, increase the ratio of empirical studies, enhance the development of indigenous theories, and go beyond simple replication or inspection of foreign theories. Scholars generally believe that public administration in China will experience an identity crisis, neither acknowledged in social science nor accepted in practical sectors, if research quality does not improve. Conversely, as Chinese reform deepens and society makes a comprehensive transition, public administration research is needed to address sophisticated and diversified social needs and to broaden understanding in disciplines such as social policy, environmental policy, nonprofit organization management, and disaster and emergency management.

As the number of public administration schools and experts grow, it is expected that the quality of research will improve over the years. Effective solutions to the unique problems facing China as it develops indigenized public administration theories require significant and sustained efforts from Chinese public administration academics. In this increasingly interdependent global society, cross-national dialog and exchange can assist in the development of public administration in China and can offer increased opportunities for Chinese concepts and ideas to make important contributions to solving public problems both at home and throughout the world.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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