Massive shake-up of Beijing ministries

China has announced a massive restructuring of ministries and agencies.

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets a delegation this week. Picture: AP

China has announced a massive restructuring of ministries and agencies — including the launch of an International Development Co-operation Agency to co-ordinate its controversial aid program.

Details of a National Supervisory Commission were also announced yesterday. This powerful body will police the loyalty of all state officials, down to the level of schools and hospitals.

State Councillor Wang Yong said the commission was aimed at enhancing the leadership of the ruling Chinese Communist Party in taking the anti-corruption campaign nationwide.

It will not be accountable to the government or to the legal system, but in theory to the National People’s Congress, or parliament, and in practice fundamentally to President Xi Jin­ping himself.

The IDCA is being formed out of elements in the Foreign and Commerce ministries, as the country massively expands its efforts to secure a global role to match its economic heft.

Mr Wang said the move would enable aid “to better serve China’s diplomacy and the Belt and Road Initiative”.

Eight ministries and seven agencies are to be axed in the reshuffle, which will dilute the former power of the National Development and Reform Commission, the chief state planning agency.

This transformation, overseen by Mr Xi — who now has few limits on his power, following constitutional changes agreed by the NPC on Sunday — is intended to realise the “new era” he has launched. It follows the direction of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with China Characteristics for a New Era, which was enshrined in the constitution of the party in October and in the national constitution on Sunday.

The reshuffle will give the party — insofar as it is distinct from the state — more direct control, and aims to reduce overlapping roles.

It will create a super-financial regulator, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, merging the former regulators of banks and insurers to help “prevent any systematic financial risks”, the State Council or cabinet announced, saying the previous arrangement “was not clear on the division of responsibility”.

The central bank, the People’s Bank of China, is expected to gain greater oversight through the new commission.

The body overseeing the stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, appears set to remain intact and separate.

Australian exporters to China will be affected by the merger of three bodies — the former China Food and Drug Administration, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine — within the powerful new National Markets Supervision Management Bureau.

This new bureau will also take over the state powers to supervise prices and to enforce competition laws.

An Immigration Management Bureau is being established, under the Public Security Ministry, to police more effectively the rules covering foreigners working in China.

Permanent immigration is not a serious issue for the new bureau, however. China has fewer than 2000 naturalised citizens in a population of almost 1.4 billion.

An Ecological Environment Ministry is to be established, taking from the NDRC the primary responsibility for combating climate change, as well as taking from various ministries the role of controlling water, agriculture and ocean pollution and overseeing, the National Nuclear Safety Bureau.

China will establish its first Ministry of Veterans Affairs following sporadic but troubling protests over veterans’ conditions and pensions by soldiers discharged or made redundant in recent years.

Premier Li Keqiang announced a week ago that People’s Liberation Army numbers had been reduced by 300,000, as planned, to about two million, in order to redirect funding from personnel towards modernisation of equipment.

A new Ministry of Culture and Tourism is being created by merging the Tourism Ministry with the National Tourism Bureau. Mr Wang said this was to pursue “the soft power of Chinese culture” and “to carry out the party’s cultural propaganda work”.

An Emergency Management Ministry is to be established to centralise and thus speed the government’s response to natural and man-made disasters, from earthquakes to forest fires. Previously the nature of the challenge determined which govern­ment agency was responsible.

A new National Resources Ministry will assume responsibilities from several agencies including the Land Ministry, which disappears.