Jeremy Sargent on the Chinese government

In terms of what a lot of people in the West don't understand about China, although China is sort of top down in its administrative system, it's very layered: you've got your leader, your second, your third, your fourth, going right down to the street level.  That being said, and no, it's not a democracy: you don't vote these people in and out, but they are highly accountable and it's become very accountable based on performance.  So if you're a medium level government official in Guangzhou here, or even a street official looking after this street here, if you don't deliver what you've pledged, you might lose your job.  If you screw up, you go down for it.  And the Chinese government is constantly seeking feedback, gauging opinion, understanding how communities, how people feel about what's going on.  And if people are feeling a certain way about something, they will take action.

So in that sense, there is direct accountability.  If you're the Guangzhou Environmental Protection Department and you pledge to clean up the air or plant ten trees down the street, if you don't do it, you've screwed up and you will suffer the consequences of that.  So there is that accountability, sort of executive-led accountability.

What I feel, sometimes talking to friends back in UK and other countries, that side of China doesn't make headlines in the media.  People don't realize and they think that China's very much a top-down, "do what you're told" and that's the end of it.  But it's not that simple.  It really isn't.

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And I think that's one reason China's modernization has gone pretty well in most senses.  It's because of that accountability.  There's almost an unwritten contract between the government and the people.  "We're going to make things better and if we don't we're screwing up.  We've got no legitimacy left any longer."  That works quite well.

~ Jeremy Sargent, Brit who has lived in China for 25 years, "This walk with Brit in Guangzhou changed my view of China," Max Chernov, 7:15 mark, January 20, 2025