The State Council’s institutional reform laid the foundation for building a beautiful modern China.

　　Zhou Hongchun, Research Fellow, the State Council Development Research Center

　　China Net/China Development Portal Network News On March 13, 2018, at the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress, State Councilor Wang Yong was entrusted by the State Council to explain the State Council’s institutional reform plan according to the Plan for Deepening the Reform of Party and State Institutions adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee. Judging from the arrangement of the departments in the State Council, the initial rationalization of the management system of ecological civilization construction will play a positive role in the fine management of ecological civilization construction in China.

　　The core of ecological civilization construction is the "harmonious coexistence between man and nature" proposed in the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Its top-level design has new development concept and "five in one"; Whether it is the concept of innovation, coordination, green, openness and shared development, or the construction of economic, social, political, cultural and ecological civilization, it naturally occupies a great weight. Especially when China enters a new era, the main social contradictions have changed, and how to manage the natural ecosystem is a big article. The institutional reform in the State Council and the arrangement of its constituent departments reflect the China characteristics of the modernization of ecological governance capacity.

　　Set up "two departments and one bureau" to lay the foundation for the construction of beautiful China.

　　In the past, it was common for several ministries to jointly issue documents on the construction of ecological civilization. For example, the first batch of ecological civilization demonstrations and the second batch of pilots in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan were jointly issued by several departments. For another example, "Five Dragons Governing Water" is a well-known phenomenon among Chinese people. This kind of multi-sectoral linkage is "normal" in the previous work arrangements in the State Council. This institutional reform in the State Council has set up the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the State Forestry and Grassland Bureau among the constituent departments in the State Council, which reflects the direction of the reform of the Ministry system that has been emphasized by the CPC Central Committee since the 18th National Congress, especially that one department should co-ordinate matters in principle and one department should be responsible for one thing in principle, which can avoid multiple policies, unclear responsibilities and buck passing. The design of the reform embodies the scientific nature. Scientific nature is the key to the success of the reform, which is related to whether the whole reform plan meets the actual needs and the objective laws.

　　After the introduction of the State Council’s reform plan, it is helpful for the public to understand the truth. For example, in the department setting of the State Council institutions, why should we set up "two departments and one bureau", how to determine their respective functions, how to divide the boundaries of department management, and what is the scientific basis, all of which need to be carefully interpreted. From the reform plan, the management object of the Ministry of Natural Resources is mainly the natural ecosystem (some people call it the original environment), and its main functions are to find out the family background, determine the property rights of natural resources, and protect the whole landscape, fields, lakes and grasses, restore the system and comprehensively manage them. The management object of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment is mainly the polluted environment (some people call it the secondary environment), and its main function is supervision and pollution control. From the research object of natural resources environmental economics, natural resources are generally regarded as the input end of economic activities, and the environment is generally regarded as the output end of economic activities. In this sense, the establishment of the State Council’s constituent departments has a theoretical basis. The National Forestry and Grassland Bureau managed by the Ministry of Natural Resources mainly manages various nature reserves, scenic spots, natural heritage and geological parks. The function setting and optimization of "two departments and one bureau" is very necessary to reduce internal friction and even conflicts between departments, improve the efficiency of decision-making and realize the modernization of governance capacity.

　　Establishing natural resources department to make land and space management more scientific

　　Conducive to the timely introduction of land and space planning. China has a vast territory and abundant natural resources, and its economic development has made remarkable achievements. However, there is no national spatial planning with legal status, which leads to disorderly, excessive and decentralized development problems. This institutional reform integrates the original planning responsibilities of the Ministry of Land and Resources, the planning responsibilities of the National Development and Reform Commission for organizing the main functional areas, and the urban and rural planning management responsibilities of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, so as to achieve "unified spatial planning, unified use control, and unified management rights".

　　Conducive to the management of natural resources assets. Although China has carried out natural resource asset accounting for many years, the family background of natural resources is unclear, and the relevant information is mastered by many departments, such as the water conservancy department is responsible for water resources investigation, the agricultural department is responsible for grassland investigation, and the forestry department is responsible for forest wetland investigation. It is also common for a unit to take out several accounts; With the disorderly development of natural resources, it is free, a large number of state-owned assets are lost, and small bosses become rich overnight. This reform of government institutions integrates the responsibilities of water resources investigation and ownership registration of the Ministry of Water Resources, grassland resources investigation and ownership registration of the Ministry of Agriculture, and forest and wetland resources investigation and ownership registration of the State Forestry Administration, which is conducive to finding out the quantity and quality of natural resources, solving the problems of inadequate owners of natural resources and uncollected state accounts, maximizing the value of natural resources assets, and building a beautiful, coordinated, harmonious and harmonious society under the guidance of the concept of "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets".

　　In short, the purpose of establishing the Ministry of Natural Resources this time is to uniformly exercise the duties of the owner of all natural resources assets owned by the whole people, and to uniformly exercise all duties of land and space use control and ecological protection and restoration; Efforts should be made to solve the problems such as inadequate owners of natural resources and overlapping spatial planning, and to implement overall protection, systematic restoration and comprehensive management of landscapes, forests, fields, lakes and grasses, which can not only avoid the "tragedy of the commons" in which natural resources are wantonly destroyed because of "ownerless", but also lay the foundation for new reforms and system implementation such as the audit of leading cadres’ natural resources after leaving office.

　　Set up the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to make people’s living environment clear.

　　Environmental protection is China’s basic national policy. Corresponding to this basic national policy, China’s environmental protection management institutions are constantly adjusted and improved in the institutional reform in the State Council, which is very important for China’s ecological civilization construction, achieving the goal of improving environmental quality with blue sky, green water and clear water, and building a well-off society in an all-round way.

　　Inspectors are conducive to the implementation of environmental policies. China’s environmental concept and related policies are not backward in the world. However, due to insufficient supervision and inspection, some good policies are not well implemented, or the policy implementation is "out of shape". The reasons are not only the lack of law enforcement power, but also the problem of "being both an athlete and a referee". The reform of government institutions will integrate the responsibilities of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Land and Resources, the preparation of water function zoning, the management of sewage outlets, the protection of river basin water environment, the supervision and guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the marine environmental protection of the State Oceanic Administration. The integration of environmental protection responsibilities in the project area of South-to-North Water Diversion Project in the State Council is conducive to the unified implementation of the central environmental protection supervision, which makes the environmental protection policies, regulations and standards hard and prickly, and makes the environmental pollution behavior be punished as it should, and plays a warning role.

　　Conducive to pollution control and improvement of environmental quality. It is impossible to develop the economy without paying the environmental cost, but how to develop the economy with a smaller environmental cost and protect the environment with the lowest possible economic cost is a realistic problem that we have to think about. In the past practice of environmental pollution control, we have both successful experience and lessons that we have spent a lot of money on pollution control. This also raises the question of what the government should manage and what policy tools to use in environmental protection and pollution control. This institutional reform in the State Council has endowed the Ministry of Ecology and Environment with the functions of formulating and organizing the implementation of eco-environmental policies, plans and standards, taking charge of eco-environmental monitoring and law enforcement, supervising and managing pollution prevention, nuclear and radiation safety, and organizing the central environmental protection inspector. In other words, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment should put forward policies, regulations and emission standards for ecological environmental protection. As for the technical route to achieve the goal of improving environmental quality, it can play the role of market mechanism, third party and public participation and supervision. For the environmental pollution problems found in the inspection, we can also give better play to the role of the media and achieve the goal of ecological civilization construction through the integration of various forces.

　　The reform of government institutions, with the people as the center, the modernization of national governance system and governance capacity as the guide, and the focus on promoting the optimization, coordination and efficiency of institutional functions, has provided a strong institutional guarantee for improving efficiency and effectiveness, winning the Chinese dream of building a well-off society in an all-round way, starting a new journey of building a socialist modernized country in an all-round way and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The reform conforms to the reality of ecological civilization construction in China, and a new era of ecological civilization in China will surely come as soon as possible.