Political Interest Distribution and Provincial Response Strategies: Central-Local Relations in China after the 17th National Congress of the CPC

The distribution of political interests in China after the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China indicates that the central government currently has greater control over the local government than it did during the 16th National Congress. Regarding the transition of political interests, the central government can successfully promote preferred policies, even when the policies damage local interests. This study develops a model for predicting local government responses to central policies, using the 2009 policy dispute over resuming the Labour Day Golden Week holiday as the validity criterion. It is found that use of the proposed analytical framework can reduce prediction errors by 33.2 per cent.