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Mao Zedong expressed his opinion on jurisdiction on several times. On December 2, 1949, he wrote, the organizational regulations are essential laws for the current period, requiring uniform implementation by all local governments, though they may adapt them to local conditions. Effective governance in a large country like China depends on strong local institutions. While unity and centralization are crucial, they must be balanced with flexibility to address local needs. The feudal-era regional divisions have been eliminated, and the division of responsibilities between the central and local authorities is seen as beneficial rather than harmful. On August 12, 1953, he explained

"Centralization and decentralization are in constant contradiction with each other. Decentralism has grown since we moved into the cities. To resolve this contradiction all the principal and important issues must first be discussed and decided on by the Party committee before its decisions are referred to the government for implementation."

And 6 months earlier, he remarked, the “five excesses” refer to the overabundance of assignments, meetings and training courses, documents and reports, organizations, and side jobs for activists. These longstanding issues persist despite directives from the Central Committee urging Party committees to address them. Instead of improving, the problems have worsened because they have not been systematically addressed as a whole, nor has there been a concerted effort to combat the underlying causes of decentralism and bureaucracy. These issues primarily originate from higher levels of Party and government leadership, from the central level down to the county level, rather than being solely local problems.

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Three aspects of law dissemination under the CCP differed from earlier efforts in China can be found. First, party authorities emphasized that learning about laws was a matter of class consciousness. Laws were portrayed as expressions of the will of the people, materialized with the assistance of the CCP. As a result, individuals were expected to emotionally embrace laws and to support and uphold the party-state that had contributed to their creation. Second, the simplification of laws and legal language was implemented. Laws were crafted to be accessible to a wider audience and to be flexible, even if this complexity made their practical application more challenging. Third, the new regime opted to integrate law dissemination with techniques of mass education and mass mobilization. Popularization and dissemination of law was done by extensive propaganda. Drama, opera, and film were the means to reach the public. Remote districts were visited by performing troupes. These performances showed the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and between ‘lawful’ and ‘unlawful’. The Marriage law was well suited for this kind of ‘education’. Most familiar old operas were used to portray the ‘old marriage system’, of which most of them did not have a happy ending. See Article 45
Censors gained practice identifying improper ways of talking about the Marriage Law in publications, novels and performances. Gradually, this integration made it increasingly challenging to distinguish discussions concerning family and marital affairs from the official discourse outlined in the Marriage Law. In the guided public discourse of the 1950s, the language of the law solidified its influence. Individuals could no longer derive reassurance from educational resources or discussions indicating that behaviours diverging from the political interpretations of the fundamental essence of the law would receive legal and political protection, regardless of how this concept was interpreted at the local level.

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According to the Common Program, the central government is the highest body of state power when the NPC is not in session. The People's Republic of China is a unitary state; the central government defines the division of jurisdiction between the central and local administration. The jurisdiction of the central government is written down in the “Organic Law of the PRC Central People’s Government” and

“…defines the central power as enacting and interpreting laws, formulating domestic and foreign policies, and appointing the leaders of the state, Regions and provinces. But the jurisdictions of the local authorities are not specified."

In practice, since the Central Government is only an executive assembly with no implementation and enforcement infrastructure and resources, it has to delegate most of its decision-making powers to the GAC. The Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, despite its independent status vis a vis the executive branch endowed by the Common Program, are in reality supervised by the Political-Legal Committee of the GAC, a mandate given personally by Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Central Government, and Zhou Enlai, the premier of the GAC. This means that the GAC are exercising de facto executive, judicial, and prosecutorial powers, as well as, to some extent, legislative power. See also Article 17
As seen in Article 14 , in 1954, the six great administrative bureaus were dismantled, and two resolutions were passed: one to regulate provincial and district organs and another to increase the number of central organs. Following the abolition of the bureaus, provincial administrations were elevated from secondary to primary status, placing them directly under the leadership of the central government. Administrative regions at the provincial level were consolidated, with all cities coming under provincial jurisdiction, except for Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, which remained under the Central Government. Consequently, the number of provinces decreased from 53 in 1953 to around 30 by 1955. The creation of the State Planning Commission in October 1952 is the hallmark of the call for increased centralization and unification in planning.

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The establishment of local government in the Chinese countryside during the early 1950s was a direct political reflection of Land Reform. See Article 27 This agrarian policy was essential for establishing a unified national administrative system and defining the relationship between the state and the peasantry. Land Reform created the political and class foundation for rural governance by radically restructuring property rights. The redistribution of confiscated land (nearly half of the total cultivated area) to the poor peasants—who constituted 60-70% of the rural population—made them the major beneficiaries and firmest supporters of the new regime. This process simultaneously destroyed the social base of the traditional elite (the landlord class), replacing their rule and the old patterns of local politics with a new system where poor peasants held the dominant political position. Land Reform provided the new state with the legitimacy and authority to penetrate deeply into the village and incorporate isolated rural communities into the national system.
However, the new political institutions established through Land Reform, such as the village government, initially clashed with the newly established system of private peasant property rights. This conflict necessitated further institutional innovation by the state. The most profound change came with the introduction of agricultural cooperativization (starting with Mutual Aid Teams). To support this economic transformation, the state rapidly adapted its administrative structure, most notably by enlarging the township government and amalgamating it with the district government, making the township the central fabric of collectivization.
The core of the new rural power structure was the CCP organization, which replaced the traditional gentry and clan structures. The Party branch served as the ultimate supervisor and coordinator of all programs, rapidly expanding its reach to cover 100% of all townships by early 1958. While Land Reform empowered the peasant association as the initial administrative and political vehicle, it was agricultural cooperativization that allowed state power to fully penetrate the natural village level. Collectivization effectively placed all rural resources under the control of grassroots cadres, giving them an increasingly significant role. This shift, however, created a new challenge, as the concentration of power in the hands of cadres necessitated constant state supervision and mass surveillance to prevent them from becoming a self-interested group that threatened the interests of both the state and the peasantry.

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Chapter 2 of Common Program

• Road to Common Program
• Common Program
• Bibliography
• Documents