China’s multi-year campaign against bureaucratic formalism has achieved substantial breakthroughs, particularly at the grassroots level where administrative burdens have historically hampered effective governance. The transformation is most evident in communities like Qiyiqiao in Jingmen, Hubei province, where local officials previously struggled under the weight of excessive administrative requirements.
This shift addresses what Chinese idiom describes as ‘a small horse pulling a heavy cart’—the fundamental mismatch between limited local resources and overwhelming tasks delegated from higher authorities. In Jingmen, communities once displayed up to 44 organizational plaques on their walls, each representing separate reporting requirements, documentation demands, and assessment procedures that consumed administrative capacity.
The city launched a systematic reform initiative that eliminated approximately 24,000 redundant plaque requirements while transferring specialized responsibilities like air pollution inspection to professional social organizations. More significantly, Jingmen implemented a smart community platform that revolutionizes task assignment procedures. The system now mandates that higher-level departments clearly specify their own responsibilities, outline expectations for grassroots units, and detail support mechanisms before submitting task requests. Applications failing these requirements are automatically rejected, resulting in a 30% reduction in village and community workloads.
Parallel developments in Hunan province’s Cili county demonstrate how digital transformation is streamlining administrative processes. The Smart Cili platform provides real-time data access that has transformed previously labor-intensive reporting tasks. What once required day-long data collection from 19 villages now generates automated reports within minutes, saving local officials approximately six working days monthly.
In Anhui province’s Lai’an county, agricultural officials now spend less time preparing for redundant inspections and more time addressing practical farmer concerns. Provincial authorities have consolidated three separate assessments—rural vitalization, food security, and poverty alleviation—into a single comprehensive evaluation, significantly reducing bureaucratic overhead.
These reforms align with central government directives issued in August 2024 that specifically target seven areas of bureaucratic inefficiency, including document streamlining, meeting reduction, and inspection standardization. President Xi Jinping has emphasized the critical importance of reducing grassroots burdens, stating during a November 2024 village visit that officials must dedicate maximum energy to serving public needs.
Academic experts highlight the profound implications of these changes. Professor Cui Jing of Central University of Finance and Economics notes that reform efforts ‘guide Party members to stay true to their original aspiration, enhance grassroots governance efficiency, and strengthen public satisfaction.’ Researchers attribute formalism partly to performance evaluation systems that overemphasize documentation, creating incentives for officials to prioritize report preparation over substantive problem-solving.
As Tsinghua University researcher Ran Aobo observes, the root cause often lies in disconnected leadership setting unrealistic goals. Future solutions may involve cross-sector collaboration, AI-assisted documentation processing, and standardized policy length regulations—all aimed at creating more responsive, efficient governance systems that truly serve public needs.
