China’s Information Disclosure Initiative: Assessing the Reforms

Renu RanaDepartment of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi

This article examines the initiatives taken by the government of the People’s Republic of China towards ensuring government information transparency. The Open Government Information Regulations (OGI) which was adopted in 2007 is a landmark in the transparency reforms process in China. The analysis of this initiative and further reforms becomes vital as China has witnessed newly emerged emphasis on anti-corruption campaign and rule of law. Though these regulations were adopted in 2007 at national level, many reforms have been introduced in these regulations in terms of annual guidelines from time to time. This article analyses the origin and development of OGI; the scope of these regulations; the legal, political and structural problems obstructing the successful implementation of these regulations; and fur-ther reforms towards making China more open and transparent. This work also provides a comparative analysis of information disclosure initiatives in China and India.

Keywords: Open Government Information Regulations (OGI), Law, Transparency, disclosure, Secrecy, State secrets, Right to Information Act (RTI), Anti-corruption campaign

The initiatives taken by the Chinese government for ensuring transparency in gov-ernance are not a new phenomenon. Contrary to the common belief that the Chinese government acts and functions in a secretive manner, the Chinese government has taken steps to ensure transparency and reforms in state–society relations over the past few decades. It is a combination of economic and political motives that has driven the Communist Party of China (CPC) leadership toward greater transparency (Horsley 2007a). With increasing influence and ‘commitment at international and bilateral levels’ in this regard (Horsley 2007a, 2007b), China has felt the need to make the government more efficient in confronting the challenge of consolidating the Party’s

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legitimacy. This has necessitated the introduction of reforms in the existing informa-tion disclosure laws and regulations.

As part of reforms in the transparency laws, the State Council of China issued a third set of annual priorities for Open Government Information (OGI) in March 2014. These new guidelines call for some amendments and reforms for better implementation of OGI Regulation which was introduced first in 2008 as part of its commitment to bring about transparency and accountability in governance. These guidelines known as ‘Main Points for 2014 Government Public Information Work’ give rise to expecta-tions regarding broadening the sphere of freedom of information in China amidst CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign.

These reforms in freedom of information legislation are expected to mitigate people’s grievances against the tradition of secrecy in policymaking in China. The assessment of these reforms becomes necessary as it will contribute to a better understanding of the complexities of the Chinese government’s commitment to freedom of information.

ORigin and develOPment Of Ogi

The origin of transparency efforts in the government can be traced back to 1985 when the Villagers’ Committee (VC), an autonomous organisation that manages public affairs at the village level, made fiscal, land use and home planning records available to interested villagers (Liu 2011: 121). It was adopted in several provinces including Shandong and Henan but was not codified until 2004 when the General Office of the Central Committee of Communist Party of China (CCCPC) and the General Office of the State Council issued the Notice on Open Village Affairs and Democratic Management in the Countryside (Liu 2011).

Transparency initiatives at the urban level started in the late 1990s when the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee issued an official statement proposing disclosure of all administrative regulations and decisions. In 2002, the General Office of the CPC and the General Office of the State Council issued the Notice on Further Openness in the Affairs of SOEs, COEs and their Holding Companies on 3 June 2002. That year, over 250,000 enterprises, including over 190,000 public organisations (SOEs and COEs) as well as over 57,000 private enterprises, introduced transparent management (Liu 2011: 3–4).

The first official legislation on information disclosure appeared in 2003 when the Guangzhou Municipal Government issued the Rules on OGI of the Guangzhou Municipality, also known as the ‘2003 Guangzhou Rules’. Similar statutes and rules were issued by other cities including Shenzhen, Chengdu, Shanghai, Chongqing, Wuhan, Datong, Hangzhou, Changchun and Ningbo (Snell and Xia 2007: Table 1, 46). These rules and regulations governed the information disclosure process in these cities until 2008, when the first Regulations on OGI were made effective by the State Council. Since 2008, the State Council has continued to issue its reports and

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guidelines1 to make OGI a success, including Major Work Arrangements in 2012 and 2013 (Zhao 2014: 88), the latest guidelines known as Main Points for 2014 Government Public Information Work.

The Regulations on OGI by the People’s Republic of China, first adopted by the State Council on 5 April 2007 and made effective on 1 May 2008 (China Law Center, Yale Law School 2008), mark a significant shift from the culture of government secrecy to transparency in China. Although these regulations2 are not a law passed and enacted by National People’s Congress, they make the central government as well as the local governments at various levels legally obliged3 to provide information to citizens on certain issues of public concern (Horsley 2007a). These regulations define govern-ment information as ‘information made or obtained by administrative agencies in the course of exercising their responsibilities and recorded and stored in a given form’ (State Council of China 2007: Article 2, Chapter 1).

ScOPe Of OPen gOveRnment infORmatiOn in china

The regulations on OGI aim to bring about transparency, promotion of administration according to law and serving people’s livelihood and social and economic development (State Council of China 2007: Article 1, Chapter 1). There are two methods for disclosure of information: (a) by government agencies on their own accord; and (b) in response to demand by citizens within 15–20 days.

Articles 10, 11 and 12 of Chapter 2 of the regulations of OGI, 2008 give an expanded list of disclosure information. The list of disclosure information at county level and above includes administrative regulations, rules and regulatory documents, plans for specific projects, plans for regional development and related policies, statistical information on national economic and social development, reports on financial budgets and final accounts, administrative fees and matters subject to administrative licensing and their legal basis and standards, the government’s centralised procurement projects, their standards and their implementation, administrative licensing and their legal bases, conditions, quantities, procedures and deadlines and catalogues of all the materials

1 Some of the reports and guidelines passed by State Council with regard to OGI include Notice of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance on the Standards for Fees Collected by Administrative Organs for Providing Open Government Information upon Request and Other Relevant Issues (16 July 2008), and Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Improving the Work of Disclosing Government Information Upon Request (January 2010). For more information, see China Law Center, Yale Law School (n.d.).

2 It is to be noted that regulations are different from the laws passed by the legislative body in a country. In China, regulations enacted by the State Council are subordinate to laws passed by the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee. In terms of law, administrative regulations rank lower in position than the Constitution and other statutes.

3 Supreme People’s Court 2011.

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that need to be submitted when applying for the administrative licensing, and the handling, information on the approval and implementation of major construction projects, policies and measures on such matters as poverty assistance, education, medical care, social security and job creation and their actual implementation, emergency plans, early warning information, counter measures against sudden public events, informa-tion on the supervision and inspection of environmental protection, public health, safe production, food and drugs and product quality (State Council of China 2007: Article 10, Chapter 2).

The information to be disclosed at the level of cities divided into districts4 and the county level includes that on major matters in urban and rural construction and man-agement, the construction of social and public interest institutions, land requisition or land appropriation, household demolition and resettlement, and the distribution and use of compensation or subsidy funds relating to land requisition and appropriation, house demolition and resettlement, management, usage and distribution of social donations in funds and in kind for emergency and disaster relief, special care for families of martyrs and military service personnel, and assistance to poverty-stricken and low-income families (State Council of China 2007: Article 11, Chapter 2).

The information to be made available to the public at the township level includes information on the implementation of rural work policies of the state, fiscal income and expenses and the management and use of various specialised funds, overall township (town) land use plans and information on the verification of land to be used by farmers for their primary residences, information on land requisition or land appropriation, household demolition and resettlement, and the distribution and use of compensation or subsidy funds, township (town) credits and debts, fund raising and labour levies, distribution of social donations in funds and in kind for emergency and disaster relief, special care for families of martyrs and military service personnel, and assistance to poverty-stricken and low-income families, contracting, leasing and auctioning of town-ship and town5 collectively owned enterprises and other township and town economic entities, implementation of the family planning policy (State Council of China 2007: Article 12, Chapter 2).

These regulations on OGI provide a platform for the citizen’s involvement in governance and also represent an increase in transparency in policymaking and implementation. For instance, the Ministry of Commerce issued 452,000 items of information in 2013, while the State Administration for Industry and Commerce released 4,753 items of information on request. The largest amount of information voluntarily released by a province in 2013 was 980,000 in Shaanxi and 93,000 only in Shandong, a more populous province compared to Shaanxi. However, it is interesting to note that Shaanxi issued only 3,302 items upon request, compared to

4 ‘Municipalities directly under the Central Government and other large cities are divided into districts and counties’ [Article 30 (3), Chapter 1, General Principles in the PRC Constitution (NPC 2004)].

5 Townships and towns in China are referred to xiangzhen (乡镇). For more information, refer to Article 30, Chapter 1 of the PRC Constitution (NPC 2004).

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33,306 items of information by Shandong (Tatlow 2014). Most of the information released has been on matters related to budget and environment.6

The State Council has tried to increase the scope of OGI 2008 by issuing the new guidelines in 2014. The issuing of the third set of regulations on the OGI in March 2014 indicates the limitations of the original regulations in ensuring transparency in the governance. It is important to look at the main provisions of the original regulations that were introduced in 2008 and what led to the limited success of these provisions and which resulted in another set of regulations, and how far this new set of priori-ties is going to make OGI more productive and a successful tool of transparency in government rule in China.

The third set of annual priorities issued by the State Council in March 2014 calls for the expansion of the disclosure of government information by introducing a set of eight guidelines in the field of business, commerce, education, culture, land, taxes, environment and food safety. The 2014 guidelines emphasise the strengthening of public work and full implementation of the regulations; promotion of administrative operating authority in the field of licensing, penalties, infringements, sustained manufacturing; disclosure of financial funds (budget, fund accounts); strengthening of public resource allocation information disclosure (land procurement budget of the government and construction project information); strengthening of public service information disclosure in areas of public college admissions, science and technology information disclosure management and project funding, public health sector, increased medical charges, employment infor-mation, timely disclosure of plans to promote employment, state owned enterprises, social security information disclosure; environment information disclosure, full text of public construction projects and reports of their impact on environment, key national pollution monitoring corporate information disclosure; strengthening of information disclosure training, and strict implementation of information disclosure mechanisms and strengthening of institutions responsible for information disclosure.

These guidelines have not altogether broadened the areas of information to be made public, but have broadened the scope of information within the areas already mentioned in earlier documents on OGI. The 2014 Guidelines state,

By the end of 2014, each region and each department should file with the General Office of the State Council a report on the implementation of the outlines of information disclosure work. The General Office of the State Council will supervise and inspect the implementation of the outline in due time and report the result thereof.

It emphasises more the implementation of OGI regulations than merely the structure and processes involved in information disclosure. These new guidelines are remarkable

6 Most of the information related to budget has been initiated by government bodies. On the other hand, there has been huge demand from public for the release of information on environment statements. In particular, China’s environmentalists and environment groups have been very active in using the OGI and pressuring local governments to release environment impact statements.

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for their commitment to ensure the implementation of OGI by making all localities and departments of the State Council submit their reports annually. Besides, it also calls for a timely inspection of the implementation of OGI reflecting changing state–society relations in China. The Chinese government has emerged as more responsive to the people’s demands for transparency by making departments responsible for information disclosure. For instance, the Supreme People’s Court in China in a press conference on 12 September 2014, released statistics and ten open government information cases under China’s OGI Regulations (Finder 2014a). These cases were related to release of information on environment statements, investments in real estate, expropriation of land and compensation and so on. The Supreme People’s Court revealed that in 2013, it had dealt with almost 5,000 open information cases.

Although the Guidelines which were issued in 2014 expanded some areas, they are very few in number. These include cases of Individual Property Rights (IPR) violations, manufacturing and sale of substandard products, case details, penalties and evidence which have to be made public via government websites, bulletins, press conferences, radio, television and newspapers. These new areas to be added to the list of informa-tion to be disclosed under OGI can contribute to transparency and are expected to help in the promotion of the development of a credit services market (Horsley 2014). As Zhao Zhengqun puts it:

It also demonstrates that open government information not only is of value in pro-tecting citizens’ legitimate rights and interests, restraining and monitoring abuse of administrative power but also has the value and function of protecting fair competi-tion, maintaining the order of market economy, and promoting the modernization of a country’s governance system and governance capacity. (Zhao 2014: 90)

Another positive development to be observed in the new guidelines (2014) is the inclu-sion of provisions for the requirement of some level of justification from the revealing authority for refusing to disclose information.

A thorough inspection and comparison of the new guidelines issued by the State Council in March 2014 with the original Regulations of OGI (2008) reveals the new government’s commitment7 towards making OGI a success and mitigating the short-comings of the previous regulations.

7 In November 2012, Hu Jintao, then General Secretary, said that combating corruption and promoting political integrity is a clear-cut and long-term commitment of Communist Party of China (China Daily 2012). The Chinese government has underlined its commitment to combat corruption from time to time in political speeches as well as in its White Paper on China’s Efforts to Combat Corruption and Build a Clean Government which was issued in 2010. On 22 January 2014, during a speech at a plenary meeting of the CPC’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), current General Secretary Xi Jinping, stressed that ‘the fight against corruption is a long-term, complicated and arduous task. Anti-corruption efforts must be consistent and will never slacken’ (Xinhua 2013).

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PROblemS and dRawbackS

The important characteristics of the original Regulations on OGI can be summarised as an initiative for transparency with no major outlines on implementation. It has a limited scope and many of its provisions were not clearly defined. Any information that ‘is incomplete information, disturbs social stability, and social management (Article 6 & 8), reveals state secrets (Article 14) or pre-disclosure coordination clause (Article 7)’ cannot be disclosed. On a number of occasions, government officials have denied the disclosure of information on various matters on these bases. The limited success of OGI 2008 led to improved provisions being added to the regulations on OGI in terms of annual guidelines in 2014, which aim at expanding the scope and depth of the citizen’s access to government information.

The important question thus arises: does this new set of annual priorities for OGI actually broaden the scope of OGI? If so, then to what extent?

It has been argued by officials that the new guidelines on OGI certainly expand the scope of information disclosure by putting forth a clear list of items included in information disclosure that is, licensing, penalties, budget, public health schemes, employment information, state-owned enterprises, environment information, full text of construction projects and information on their impact on environment, etc. Yet the new guidelines fail to address the shortcomings of the regulations of OGI, 2008. The criteria for denial of information disclosure that is, state secret, public security, economic security and social stability are still there.

There have been no efforts to define ‘state secrets’. Any agency, on its own discre-tion or on directives from higher authorities, can deny disclosure of any information which they consider falls under the category of state secrets. The 2010 ‘Law of the People’s Republic of China on Guarding State Secrets’, and 2014 ‘Regulations on the Implementation of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Guarding State Secrets’ fail to define state secrets and also provide very vague criteria for declassifica-tion of state secrets. The 2014 regulations on guarding state secrets (Government of the People’s Republic of China 2014a: Article 16) put the declassification and exten-sion of secret guarding periods within the scope of the revealing organs and units’ discretion. Even the Interim Provisions on Management of State Secrets Classification issued in March 2014, ‘are intended to clarify procedures for state secrecy officials rather than to provide procedural protections to those seeking to challenge overly broad classification of state secrets’ (Finder 2014b). The classification regulations of 2014 (Government of the People’s Republic of China 2014b) fail to define state secrets, provide a very vague scope of the matters not to be classified (Article 19) and no clearly defined criteria for declassification (Article 31). This is definitely a hurdle in implementation of OGI.

There were many other exemptions made in 2008 in the regulations on OGI such as matters that threaten social stability, social management order, state security, public

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security and economic security.8 These exemptions have not been addressed in the new guidelines. Any information being asked for will be vulnerable to be denied under the above categories unless these categories are clearly defined (Kaiser and Liu 2009).

There have been many instances when government officials refused to disclose information. For example, a 2010 regulation requires provincial-level environmental protection bureaus to disclose enterprises that are major emitters of dioxins. Only four of 31 bureaus have made the disclosure. Even after receiving an OGI request, none of the remaining 27 bureaus provided the information (Caragliano 2012; Tatlow 2014). In another instance, Qu Shaoshen’s request for the release of Guangzhou’s regula-tions on the use of government and Communist Party vehicles from Guangzhou’s Administration of Industry and Commerce (AIC) under China’s OGI regulations, was declined by the Guangzhou AIC on the grounds that the regulations are classified as a state secret with the decision later by the Tianhe District People’s Court and by the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court on appeal (Finder 2014b).

Another shortcoming of the OGI in China is that it is merely a regulation and not a law. It does not have the backing of the Constitution. It is a mere provision for ‘openness’ and not a ‘right to know’, as administrative agencies can not only limit the scope of disclosure within the given list, but also enjoy broad discretion to decide whether specific data even falls within the given list because crucial definitions remain unsettled (Liu 2011: 18–19). Thus OGI, while a major breakthrough in bringing some transparency in state–society relations in China, nevertheless falls short of its promises. It has very limited scope. OGI is aimed at increasing levels of transparency in government, but in practice, ‘low levels of compliance have negated its effective-ness’ (Caragliano 2012).

calling fOR fuRtheR RefORmS

There have been diverse responses to OGI in China from various sections of soci-ety including intellectuals, dissidents, professors, government officials and lawyers. Demands for transparency reforms have come from both citizens as well as government officials. This demand for transparency has increased manifold with the ongoing transi-tions in China’s governance including the introduction of the anti-corruption campaign by the Chinese President Xi Jinping. Without transparency and other institutional reforms such as an independent judiciary, and other checks and balances in govern-ment, the anti-corruption campaign might end up as mere rhetoric or lead to abuses (Anderlini 2014). A large number of political dissidents, activists, lawyers and others have been demanding transparency in government structure. Professor Wang Xixin from Peking University believes that ‘hot’ issues that the public pays attention to are

8 These terms are not properly defined legally.

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often sensitive issues and that some authorities deny information disclosure on such issues on the basis of the provision concerning state secrets (Tatlow 2014). It cannot be denied that the government has shown commitment to making the system more transparent in the last few decades (Branigan 2013), yet the lack of compliance by government officials in disclosing the information and the crackdown by the government against activists have raised many questions regarding the commitment of government.

Rights activist and lawyer Xu Zhiyong’s arrest in January this year, on the one hand, and Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, on the other hand (Oster 2014), reflect the duality of the Chinese government’s commitment and efforts towards free-dom of information for its citizens. Xu is a lawyer and founder of the New Citizens Movement. The New Citizens Movement’s main demand was to compel officials to disclose their assets. Xu was sentenced to four years’ jail in April 2014 for taking up the corruption issue outside the official initiative (Lo 2014; Kaiman 2014). Three more anti-corruption activists were sentenced in the province of Jiangxi to six and a half years in June 2014 despite the official drive against corruption. Activists Liu Ping and Wei Zhongping were sentenced to six and half years and Li Sihua to three years on the charge of disrupting public order when they were founded holding ban-ners urging government officials to disclose their assets. These incidents reflect the Chinese government’s dual approach to bringing about transparency in government. Though the Chinese central government has come up with an anti-graft drive and information disclosure initiative, it is not very accommodative of the public demand for the same (AsiaOne News 2014). No law can be successful until it has the support and participation of the citizens. Liu (2011: 10) has argued that there is need for a well-informed citizenry. There is need for continuous people’s pressure on the gov-ernment agencies so that they implement these regulations properly and disclose the required information on time. Another important task before the government for the implementation of these regulations is to provide the required infrastructure (Suzanne et al. 2009). Governments need to utilise information technology to integrate the task of information disclosure with government websites so that the problem of duplication of demands for the same information can be addressed and the disclosure procedure can be made more transparent.

As stated before, OGI regulations are merely regulations and do not possess the attributes of laws which can be enforced by the judiciary. In the event of contradictions between a regulation and a law, it is the law that takes precedence over the regulation. For instance, any information being asked is vulnerable to be denied by resorting to the law on state secrets. There is a need to make it a law so that it would be taken more seriously by the government and administrative bodies.

The 2014 guidelines provide for six important mechanisms to strengthen the infrastructure of the OGI system. These guidelines call for strengthening of informa-tion disclosure training, implementation of mechanisms for recognising the source of information being disclosed, strengthening of the construction of mechanisms to examine the secrecy of the information to be disclosed, mechanisms for updating

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the information disclosure catalogue, strengthening various aspects of OGI such as inspection, social appraisal, accountability, supervising and guaranteeing infor-mation disclosure and strengthening of the construction of institutions and staff responsible for information disclosure. These guidelines, however, fail to provide an effective redressal mechanism in case of refusal of information disclosure by any administrative agency. In the case of countries like India, where the Right to Information Act has been used by a great number of citizens and activists, there is provision for redressal which has helped to keep information disclosing authorities more responsive to the people’s demands for information; there is no such mechanism in the case of China’s OGI regulations.

In order to make OGI a success, therefore, it is necessary to establish a mechanism to look into the issue of refusal of information by government agencies. Though these guidelines provide for mechanisms to examine the secrecy of information to be released, there is no information about an institutional body which might examine the validity of the bases for refusal of information by disclosure agencies. The establishment of such a body with the greater involvement of the judiciary and ordinary citizens would strengthen the OGI system.

The most important task before the government in reforming the freedom to information regulations is to revise some other laws which are in contradiction to the regulation of OGI such as State Secret Law,9 Archives Law 1988,10 and 2005 Civil Servants Law. There is need to provide more appropriate and exact definition of some terms such as ‘state secrets’. The Chinese government needs to maintain a balance between secrecy and transparency so that state secret laws are not an obstacle in ensuring transparency in government.

cOncluSiOn

The new guidelines of 2014 do not actually lead to broadening of the OGI regulation in terms of areas of information to be disclosed. Yet, these guidelines contribute to the process of making OGI more accessible to the people by emphasising the estab-lishment of monitoring authority and strengthening system infrastructure. Robert Williams (2014) comments that the Chinese government ‘is selectively expanding freedom of information’ in the wake of reforms introduced in various laws including

9 The Law on Guarding State Secrets (enacted in 1989, revised in 2010) defined ‘state secrets’ broadly, to encompass ‘matters that affect the security and interests of the state and, as specified by legal procedure, are entrusted to a limited number of people for a given period of time’. These state secrets include secrets ‘concerning major policy decisions on state affairs’, ‘secrets in national economic and social development’ and ‘secrets of political parties that conform with the provisions of the preceding clause of this Article’ (Liu 2011).

10 At the state level, the average term of declassification of a document kept by the State Archives is 30 years.

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OGI regulations and steps announced at the Fourth Party Plenum, while keeping tight control over freedom of expression, judiciary and other constituents of transparency process in any country.

Making OGI into a law might lead to a far more effective and transparent gov-ernment but this seems to be a distant prospect considering the rate of progress in freedom of information in China. Though OGI presents a weak freedom of informa-tion initiative compared to other countries where the right to information has been implemented such as US, India and some European countries, it provides a platform for increased citizens’ participation in governance and transparency if we look at the long history of the secrecy culture in policymaking in China. OGI in China and Right to Information (RTI) in India came up around same time. RTI was enacted in 2005 in India whereas OGI regulations were passed in 2007. Despite being different politi-cal systems, the aim of information disclosure initiatives in both countries is similar: disclosure of government information. Both have similar rules on the procedures for applying for information disclosure.

Despite these similarities, RTI and OGI are different in nature, scope and impli-cations. The OGI emerged in China as part of a bottom-up process11 initiated not by civil society but by government bodies (Murugkar and Xu 2012). Though the journey of the Right to Information Act in India also started at the bottom level, the actors here were civil society members and organisations12 with both the government and judiciary later playing important roles in enacting the law. The RTI in India is a formal law passed by Parliament whereas OGI in China is merely an administrative regulation. The scope of RTI includes information from all the public institutions including administration, legislative and judiciary as well as organisations funded by government and independent non-governmental organisations (NGOs) whereas OGI provides information only from administrative organs. RTI in India has very few and clearly defined exemptions from information disclosure. Any information, which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the state, relation with foreign state or lead to incitement of an offence; which has been expressly forbidden to be published by any court of law or tribunal or the disclosure of which may constitute contempt of court; which would cause a breach of privilege of parliament or the state legislature; which include commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, which would harm the competitive position of a third party; cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the council of ministers, secretaries and other officers; which would

11 OGI was first passed as local administration regulations and laws by provincial level governments, then after 20 years gaps was introduced at central level by State Council.

12 These include, for instance, the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) movement in Rajasthan in 1993, Consumer Education and Research Council, Ahmedabad (CERC) in 1993 but no serious considerations were given to these efforts until MKSS movement gave rise to the National Campaign on People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) which led to central government in India giving a serious thought to this campaign.

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impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders etc., would be deemed unfit for disclosure on Right to Information Act (Xu 2008). In case of non-disclosure, reasons have to be provided by the authorities.

In China, there are many exemptions from release which are not even clearly defined as state secrets, such as confidential commercial information, protecting an individual’s privacy, etc (Horsley 2009: 02). The redressal mechanism in case of RTI is very strong. The reply has to be provided within a stipulated time and there is provision for penalty in case any official is found guilty of not implementing the RTI whereas there is no such provision in the case of OGI. Despite the fact that information disclosure initia-tives were taken in China in the 1980s by local governments and in India this started only in the middle of 1990s, the number of applications demanding information filed annually in India and the amount of information provided by the government is very high compared to China.

This comparison of information disclosure initiatives in China and India has significance in trying to assess the success of information disclosure laws in any coun-try. The nature of a political system cannot in itself be considered an obstacle in the path towards greater transparency of public institutions and processes. Rather it is a combination of both state structure and social awareness and participation that can lead to the success of any initiative that aims to bring about transparency. Though the information disclosure structure in India is not devoid of shortcomings, it clearly is far ahead of OGI. This can be attributed to active civil society participation, judicial independence and other factors.

The OGI guidelines issued in March 2014 and the new steps introduced at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC13 in October 2014 provide hope for a better future of OGI regulations in China but a mere set of guidelines and targets cannot lead to change unless implemented properly. With the increased level of awareness among citizens about information disclosure mechanisms in China, the government also needs to introduce improved mechanisms for perform-ance monitoring so that it leads not only to more transparency in the government but also to mitigation of increasing public grievances. The issuing of new guidelines for better implementation of OGI does reflect the new government’s desire to promote accountability and transparency. Improving and deepening of the scope of information by defining the bases of exemption and more positive involvement of the government should result in better governance, an improved climate for the market and a check on corruption and might provide greater legitimacy to the Chinese government. If implemented properly with the required modifications, OGI can complement the anti-corruption campaign and result in a more open China.

13 During the Fourth Party Plenum, the Chinese government focused on building a ‘law-abiding government’ and promoting ‘transparency of government affairs’. However, PRC government emphasised that the ‘general target is to form a system serving “the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics” and build a country under “the socialist rule of law”’ (Xinhua 2014).

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