Local variation and central-local relations in China’s pandemic management

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of state capacity and organizational structure in responding to public health emergencies. The variegated outcome of response mechanisms across the world requires a comparative approach to policy response and learning as well as public governance. The Chinese case has so far been discussed in the literature with regard to its initial delay in launching pandemic management process, and later effectiveness in providing healthcare solutions at the epicenter of the pandemic. This research offers a three-dimensional approach to pandemic management: patient treatment, case containment, and welfare provision to compensate for public health measures. The variable policy processes of local governments outside the epicenter aimed at slowing down the spread of COVID-19 and alleviating the burden of lockdown. The research question is whether these policies were central government-led or cases of local variation? The dataset is composed of over 1000 documents published in the initial stages of the pandemic. The documents include local government policies for patient treatment, case containment and welfare provision from 10 provinces and 10 provincial-level cities across China, excluding the autonomous regions. Analysis of the data indicates that localities selectively implemented central directives and those localities that are critical in terms of geography, demography or economics took initiative for policy innovation. Inter-locality rivalry also played a role in the policy process. This research contributes to the literature on central-local relations in China, and public policy and governance in the post-pandemic era. China, Covid-19, local governance, local variation, emergency governance.