Abstract
The Chinese Communist Party is consolidating one party rule under the leadership of Xi Jinping. Beijing seeks to rule by central mandate while limiting local autonomy. The central government response to the COVID‐19 public health emergency reinforces this view. In January 2020 Beijing established the Central Epidemic Response Leading Group to mobilise a comprehensive nationwide policy effort to contain the virus. The exceptional nature of the COVID‐19 national emergency allows the central government to project power over local authorities and leverage over citizens, but we argue that this is a short‐term phenomenon because local disease control initiatives remain important, with local authorities adapting national policies to meet constituent needs. There are degrees of policy discretion and divergence at the subnational level that enable context‐specific responses to the virus within China’s strict bureaucratic hierarchy. Primary data derives from interviews and observations in Nancun village, Hebei Province, conducted from January to April 2020. Evidence from Nancun explains how local authorities interpret the edicts and mandates of the central government.
Highlights
On 31 December 2019 the World Health Organization Country Office in China received the first reports of an unknown pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital
In the context of the exceptional COVID-19 national emergency response that is used by the central government to project its power over local authorities in the short term, this article asks to what extent local responses are decentralised by identifying forms of policy discretion and divergence at village level in Hebei Province
Our empirical findings broadly support the ‘encompassing-governance-urgent’ policy dimensions of an extreme public health emergency such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or COVID-19, but we argue that within a constrained, coercive environment there are local forms of policy discretion and divergence that should be documented
Summary
On 31 December 2019 the World Health Organization Country Office in China received the first reports of an unknown pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital. In the context of the exceptional COVID-19 national emergency response that is used by the central government to project its power over local authorities in the short term, this article asks to what extent local responses are decentralised by identifying forms of policy discretion and divergence at village level in Hebei Province.
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