Abstract

In order to objectively evaluate the achievements made and the problems encountered by China in the disclosure of government information and openness of government affairs, a project team of the Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has been carrying out assessment of indices of government transparency in China for eight consecutive years since 2009. In the assessment, it has adhered to the principles of setting indices in accordance with law, making the assessment objectively, reflecting the current situation while guiding the future development and assessing the general situation while highlighting key points, established a new index system every year in light of the actual situation, and carried out quantitative assessment of the disclosure of government information by various departments under the State Council as well as by provincial-level governments, governments of larger cities, and some county-level governments. A review of the assessment results in the past eight years shows that the state is attaching more and more importance to the work of disclosure of government information and openness of government affairs and has taken it as an important means of social governance and construction of a law-based government. The scope of disclosure has been expanding every year and the procedure of disclosure gradually standardized. Meanwhile, the annual assessment has also exposed some problems: the consciousness of openness among government officials still need to be strengthened, the standard of openness to be further elaborated, and the platform of openness and disclosure to be integrated and optimized. In the future, China should further deepen the work of openness by strengthening publicity, improving legislation, elaborating standards, increasing the user-friendliness of platforms of disclosure through informatization, and attaching equal importance to both disclosure of results and disclosure in advance, so as to realize the integrative development of the mechanisms for the disclosure and explanation of government information and for the response to requests for the disclosure of government information.