Towards Public Service-Oriented Governance? Administrative Reform with 'Chinese Characteristics'

This chapter has been written in the wale of a tumultuous year in Chinese history which has attracted exhaustive international media and political attention - the repression of the ongoing struggle for self-determination in Tibet which demonstrated the worst excess if authoritarian statism, the appalling national tragedy of the earthquake in Sichuan and the coming of age of the Chinese state as host to the Olympic Games in Beijing. The latter two events revealed both the startling revelation organisational prowess of the Chinese government and the generosity of the spirit of the Chinese people. They also exposed the later chapter in the emotional roller coaster ride that Chinese citizens have experienced in a period of rapid modernization from the national mourning of victims of the earthquake in Southern China to their unrestrained national jubilation at the success of the Olympic Games in Beijing.