ABSTRACT
Economic relations are a core element in China’s policies and practices of governance in the Inner Periphery. China’s economic reforms are tied closely to legal reform-particularly in areas of contract and property law, and in foreign economic relations, where the central government asserts primacy in legal and regulatory articulation of Party policy initiatives (Potter 2001). Constitutional provisions on local government in the nationality autonomous regions empower local People’s Congresses to implement central policies through examination and approval of economic and social development plans, local administrative budgets, and implementation reports (Constitution: Art. 115). The Constitution also directs People’s Congresses in nationality autonomous regions to adopt regulatory measures consistent with national law and subject to approval by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (Constitution: Art. 116). While autonomous region governments have nominal autonomy to oversee local financial administration and to administer local economic development arrangements, these are subject to the broad guidance of state systems and plans (Constitution: Art. 117, 118). These limitations are reiterated in the Nationality Region Autonomy
Law (NRAL), which subjects local economic construction programs, policies, and plans to the requirements of state planning, while leaving implementation up to local governments (NRAL: Art. 25). While general supervision of economic policy performance falls to the local People’s Congresses, this role is limited and remains subject to central state authority. The local People’s Congresses, nominally charged with oversight of local People’s Government, the People’s Courts and the People’s Procuracy (so-called “one mansion, two compounds”—yi fu liang yuan), but exercise only indirect supervision subject to the overall principles of ensuring compliance with Party and state policies, ensuring stability of the socialist market economy, and ensuring overall benefit to the national economy (Zhou 2001). In the Inner Periphery, the Western Development Program is central to the government’s efforts to promote integration and curb dissident and separatist sentiments.
