One of the perennial questions concerning China relates to the strength and durability of the state in its current form. The demise of the Communist Party has been predicted by various commentators and scholars periodically over the last 20 years, but the Party is still there and as strong as ever, at least superficially. A more nuanced debate, and just as long running, has been over the capacity of the state to effectively formulate and implement policy in a coordinated manner. In this context, the most durable analytical framework has been the fragmented authoritarianism model developed by Kenneth Lieberthal and colleagues. This model arose from their observations of China's governance systems during the 1980s, which included the energy sector.
The central feature of fragmented authoritarianism is that the system of governance may be authoritarian in that political elites at the very top of the hierarchy have considerable power, but this power is undermined by a highly fragmented bureaucracy in which multiple actors with diverse interests can constrain or distort the processes of policy making and implementation. Many scholars have applied fragmented authoritarianism, with variations, to different aspects of governance in China, including to the governance of the energy sector.
In her book, Monique Taylor sets out to challenge this approach by showing how the perspective of bureaucratic authoritarianism may provide a more valid appreciation of China's state apparatus today. To do this she focuses her study on the oil sector. At the heart of her argument lies the observation that the autonomy and capacity of the state have increased since the 1980s and that it now has the power to impose new strategic directions. In this view, the current bureaucratic authoritarian state embodies highly institutionalized structures and systems with powerful political authority vested in the Communist Party.
Chapter one lays out the research question and the direction of the author's research. The next two chapters provide the analytical framework. Chapter two explores the concept of state capacity and autonomy with particular reference to China, and draws on a number of accounts which argue that the Party has adapted itself very effectively to new challenges and, far from disintegrating, is now stronger than ever before. In chapter three, the author explores in some depth the arguments in support of a fragmented authoritarian interpretation and highlights how frequently it has been applied to the energy sector. Ever since Lieberthal and Oksenberg's original publication, scholars of China's energy sector have applied this framework to explain why the governance of the energy sector is apparently so uncoordinated and ineffective. Drawing on wider political analyses, Taylor argues that these authors have not fully appreciated the growing authority of the Party and its ability to drive through strategic change.
Chapters four to six provide a systematic account of China's oil industry in three phases: 1949–1977, “the socialist era of oil self-sufficiency”; 1978–2002, “decentralisation and corporatisation of the oil sector”; and 2003–2013, “rebuilding oil state capacity.” In simple terms, this account argues that the state capacity built up by Mao dissipated during the reform era of the 1980s and 1990s as power was decentralized to local governments and state-owned enterprises. Only in 2003 did the government of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao start to recentralize authority over the oil industry, in response to a range of severe challenges faced by the energy sector as a whole. The evidence for this recentralization of control lies in the re-creation of an energy bureaucracy for the first time since the demise of the Ministry of Energy in 1993. The new Energy Bureau and Energy Leading Group were later reconstituted into the current National Energy Administration and National Energy Commission respectively, and an entirely new body, the State Asset Supervision and Administration Commission, was established to exert direct control over the large state-owned enterprises.
In chapter seven, Taylor uses the case of the internationalization of China's national oil companies to illustrate how this newly re-gained state capacity has allowed the government to steer the overseas activities of these companies. The final chapter discusses how China, through its state capitalist approach, is challenging the liberal world order.
In this book, Monique Taylor has provided a thoughtful and refreshing analysis of China's oil industry that should be read by students, scholars and policy analysts interested in the governance of this country. The line of argument is well-founded and convincing. The Party state does retain considerable influence over the strategic direction of the oil industry and this authority has increased over the last decade. However, this insight does not undermine two other observations made by many other commentators, including myself. First, that the governance of the energy sector as a whole remains fragmented and uncoordinated, and that day-to-day regulation of the national oil companies, in relation to safety, environmental protection, emergency response and corruption for example, remains weak.
