China Power | Politics | East Asia

Amid a Slowing Economy, China Is Changing How It Judges Local Party Leaders

Longstanding metrics – particularly rapid GDP growth and infrastructural expansion – are no longer sufficient to sustain political legitimacy.

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) recent campaign to strengthen a “correct view of performance” (政绩观) represents a structural recalibration of China’s governance framework beyond mere ideological exercises. Launched in February and expected to continue till July, the initiative acknowledges that the metrics that underpinned political legitimacy over the past four decades – particularly rapid GDP growth and infrastructural expansion – are no longer sufficient to sustain political legitimacy amid an economic slowdown, fiscal constraints, and rising societal expectations. In response, the CCP is attempting to redefine what counts as bureaucratic success, shifting from a narrow, quantitative conception to a model that combines political loyalty, social welfare, and long-term policy execution. 

Chinese leadership has repeatedly stressed in the past few years that genuine achievements must benefit the people and withstand the scrutiny of practice, public opinion, and history. This reframing seeks to correct persistent distortions within local governance, where incentives have long encouraged shortsighted governance style, excessive risk-taking, and the pursuit of “image projects” designed to produce immediate and visible results. Practices ranging from data manipulation to wasteful prestige infrastructure are now explicitly framed as manifestations of a distorted performance view that undermines policy effectiveness and public trust. 

In the absence of electoral competition, the CCP’s authority remains closely tied to performance legitimacy – the ability to deliver outcomes that citizens perceive as meaningful. By linking performance to high-quality development, social welfare, and political discipline, the campaign represents a strategic response to evolving dynamics between state capacity and public expectations. 

Drivers of China’s Performance Recalibration 

As economic growth slows and governance challenges become more complex, what counts as “performance” is being redefined from the top leadership. This shift is an attempt to sustain public confidence by presenting governance as more responsive and participatory. Mechanisms such as online feedback surveys and hotlines are being emphasized through the campaign promoting a correct view of performance, giving citizens a more visible, albeit limited, role in shaping grassroots policies.

This campaign is also closely tied to broader policy shifts underway as China enters the 15th Five-Year Plan period. With greater emphasis on high-quality development, technological upgrading, and risk management, central leadership requires more consistent policy execution across regions. Redefining performance provides a mechanism to ensure that local actions align with these strategic goals, particularly by discouraging practices that generate financial risks or undermine long-term planning objectives.  

This shift in performance evaluation is consistent with Xi Jinping’s emphasis that “the key to evaluating the performance of officials lies in their reputation among the people.” By redefining performance standards at this juncture, the central leadership seeks to ensure that local officials align their actions with these national goals – particularly by curbing debt-driven expansion, reducing regulatory distortions, and prioritizing durable economic and social outcomes. 

The redefinition of bureaucratic performance extends beyond economic governance into the ideological domain. Legal and policy initiatives such as the Ethnic Unity Law signal that local officials are evaluated not only on development outcomes but also on their ability to advance CCP-defined narratives of national identity and social cohesion. By formalizing the promotion of shared cultural symbols and the concept of the Chinese nation as a unified community, these measures encourage local governments to align museums, cultural centers, and public messaging with broader nation-building objectives. 

This shift also reflects an effort to address a recurring tendency among local officials to prioritize highly visible cultural projects like museums as indicators of achievement. While the construction of cultural institutions is encouraged, greater emphasis is now placed on their ideological function and alignment with CCP priorities rather than on the scale of investment or their symbolic value alone.

Methods for Enforcement 

The campaign’s enforcement architecture reflects a trend of substituting decentralized experimentation with tighter top-down supervision as the preferred mechanism for improving policy implementation. Yet, the effectiveness of this campaign depends on the CCP’s ability to enforce it across a vast and heterogeneous bureaucratic system. 

A central instrument to implement these measures is the deployment of central guidance groups, tasked with ensuring that local implementation aligns with CCP priorities. They cover not just provincial and local bodies, but also state-owned enterprises, banks, ministries and universities, thereby indicating the expansive nature of this campaign. These groups function not only as supervisors but also as instruments of rectification, identifying deviations and enforcing CCP directives regarding performance of these units. This aims to reinforce hierarchical accountability and limit the scope for symbolic compliance. 

The oversight is also strengthened through integration with broader mechanisms such as inspections, audits, and anti-corruption investigations. By linking the campaign to these systems, distortions such as data falsification, formalism, and vanity projects are treated as systemic governance........

© The Diplomat