title: Moderation, harmony and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the Chinese context
Creators: name: Wang, Lujie
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2029

description: Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are long-term contractual arrangements between the public and private sectors, in which the latter is responsible for funding, delivering, and managing public infrastructures with the benefits and risks are shared. From this definition, PPPs are viewed as more than just a way of providing public goods and services, but as a broader institutional framework that encompasses technical, governing, and political functions. Accordingly, developed and developing countries, including China, have extensively adopted PPPs in developing public infrastructure and offering public service.
 
Since 2014, government-led transformation and reforms of China’s social, institutional, and economic conditions have been directed under the “New Normal” strategy, which advocates moderate development and harmonious society. The moderate development and harmonious society principle is anticipated to direct government policy-making and practice regarding public facilitate and service provision. The principle of moderate development requires that these services are delivered with improved quality and increased investment efficiency, whereas the notion of harmonious society advocates the application of democracy, the rule of law, fairness and justice. Under the “New Normal”, PPPs are seen as a solution to providing long-term and sustainable financing support in regenerating urban areas. 
 
In attempts to guarantee the success of PPPs, governments around the world have placed emphasis on improving the institutional supportive environment and paid attention to decisions that precede PPP operationalization. However, it is challenging to assess the effectiveness of PPPs in aiding the achievement of these policy objectives, as well as whether PPPs can prompt institutional and societal transformations. This gives rise to an advocacy for mapping the specific path of changes caused by institutional design strategies and the conditions under which the designed reform process occurs.
 
Adopting institutions and institutional theory, the study reported in this thesis explores the role of PPPs in supporting the principle of moderate development and harmonious society under China’s “New Normal”. It commences by identifying the objectives of the Chinese government for PPP adoption in the “New Normal” times, which are related to moderate development and harmonious society. Further, this study investigates the institutional arrangements at the national and project level to facilitate PPPs to help to realize these objectives. Policy objectives are identified through archival analysis of three PPP flagship policies, and the Chinese government’s strategic visions for PPP adoption are identified through the analysis of other national PPP-relevant policies and regulations. 
 
A case study of an exhibition centre established using a PPP is adopted to concretize the institutional context of PPPs in China. The goal of examining the case project is to look at the complex set of institutions in which the case study is situated and to understand the factors, the underlying structures, and mechanisms that shape the role of PPPs in helping China to realize the objectives of moderate development and harmonious society. The thematically analysed evidence of the case study is drawn from project archives which are publicly available from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) PPP Information Platform, and from interviews with actors from both the public and private sectors. 
 
This study finds that the Chinese government expects PPPs to help to achieve the objectives of moderate development and harmonious society through government functional transformation, robust private sector participation, and fiscal sustainability. 
 
In practice, regarding government functional transformation, it is evident that corporate management is achieved, but there is no strong evidence to support broader public participation and social supervision. The use of PPPs encourages robust private sector participation and the long-term budgetary perspective of the public sector. Effective financial supervisory and control management is achieved using corporate debt management. However, the transparency of the whole-life-cycle project is low, which raises doubts about the effectiveness of PPPs in improving fiscal sustainability.
 
Despite shortcomings in institutional arrangements and implementation, the findings reported in this thesis support the notion that PPPs serve as an institutional contributor to moderate development and harmonious society in China.