The Recent Social Policy Expansion and Its Implications for Inter‐governmental Financial Relations in China (中国近期的社会政策扩张及其对政府间财政关系的影响)

A rapid expansion of social policy has taken place in China in the first decade of the new century. While social policy expansion indicates improved wellbeing for the general public, it also imposes a big challenge for inter‐governmental relations in China under the existing fiscal regime in which the central government dominates the revenue distribution while the local governments assume the lion's share of public service provision. To fully implement all these social policy initiatives, a restructuring of central‐local financial relationships is necessary, to provide a sound basis for future social policy development in China .