How to solve the serious problems existing in the state governing counties by city?

The system of city governing county is an administrative system of prefecture-level city governing county (including county-level city) which has been implemented since 1980s. In recent years, Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, as a typical example of reform, many matters in the county have crossed the prefecture-level cities and directly faced the province, which is called "strengthening the county to expand power". Although the power expansion of strong counties has loosened the system of city governing counties, it is still far from the provisions of the Constitution. According to the constitution, counties should be directly under the jurisdiction of provinces. Therefore, we can't just force counties to expand their power, and all counties should restore the rights deprived by prefecture-level cities. At present, the reform in this area should not only stay at the level of economic system and administrative management, but also rise to the height of observing the Constitution, directly deny the legitimacy of the system of city governing counties, confirm the unconstitutional nature of the system of city governing counties, and announce the abolition of the system of city governing counties nationwide. Article 30 of China's Constitution stipulates: "The administrative divisions of People's Republic of China (PRC) are as follows: (1) The whole country is divided into provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government; (2) Provinces and autonomous regions are divided into autonomous prefectures, counties, autonomous counties and cities; (3) Counties and autonomous counties are divided into townships, nationality townships and towns. Municipalities directly under the central government and larger cities are divided into districts and counties. Autonomous prefectures are divided into counties, autonomous counties and cities. " Article 97 stipulates: "Deputies to the people's congresses of provinces, municipalities directly under the Central Government and cities divided into districts shall be elected by the people's congresses at the next lower level; Deputies to the people's congresses of counties, cities not divided into districts, municipal districts, townships, nationality townships and towns are directly elected by voters. " This shows that, firstly, China's administrative regions are divided into provinces, counties and townships, and there is no division of "prefecture-level cities" between provinces and counties; Second, cities are divided into cities with districts and cities without districts, and there are no different levels of "prefecture-level cities" and "county-level cities"; Third, only municipalities directly under the central government and large cities can be under the jurisdiction of counties, and other cities cannot also be under the jurisdiction of counties; Fourth, it is not stipulated that municipalities directly under the central government and larger cities can also govern cities besides counties, nor is it stipulated that other cities (including so-called prefecture-level cities with districts) can also govern cities. To sum up, the constitutional basis of city governing county is limited to municipalities directly under the central government and larger cities, but there is no constitutional basis for city governing county. From the constitutional point of view, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, these municipalities directly under the central government, can not only manage the districts in the region, but also manage the counties in the region. Larger cities also have this power to manage districts and counties. So, what kind of city can be called a bigger city? In addition to certain demographic indicators, according to the provisions of the Legislative Law, larger cities refer to the cities where the people's governments of provinces and autonomous regions are located, the cities where special economic zones are located, and the larger cities approved by the State Council. Other (prefecture-level) cities except the above have no right to administer counties (county-level cities). In practice, the city governing the county is basically in the form of "escrow". In order to avoid the suspicion of violating the constitution, many provinces are managed as a prefecture-level city hereinafter referred to as a county (county-level city). However, in practice, all escrow has become entity jurisdiction. There is no difference between escrow and jurisdiction, it is just a word game. The idea of escrow first appeared in the Opinions of the Central Committee and the State Council on the Reform of Local Government Institutions (Zhong Fa [1999] No.2). This is a document and the "opinion" of the Central Committee. It does not give a specific and scientific definition of escrow, and this article has no universally observed constitutional effect. Since the word escrow has not appeared in any legal documents since then, it can be seen that the legislature has not recognized the legal effect of escrow so far. If the system of "city governing county" played a positive role when it was first implemented, that is, the so-called "city leading county", its positive role became smaller and smaller with the passage of time. In recent years, this system has exposed its serious drawbacks more and more, which should be paid enough attention to. 1, the administrative cost is greatly increased. Although the escrow city is not economically feasible, the leading group is well equipped and there are many officials, which means that the so-called sparrow is small and complete. The problem of repeated meetings is also very prominent. County leaders should attend meetings in the province and the host city at the same time, resulting in a waste of manpower and material resources. 2. Restrict and bind the development of the county. Escrow city for their own interests, often intervene in the county's big project investment. Some counties have a long history and convenient transportation, and have always been the commercial center of a region, while the population flow of the escrow city is less than one-third of that of this county. So many express trains originally stopped at the county railway station. However, for the sake of its image as a prefecture-level city, the escrow city requires most trains to stop at the escrow station instead of the county station, which brings inconvenience to a large number of local people and foreign businessmen in the county and affects the commercial development of this big county. 3, leapfrog taxation, weakened the county's financial resources. According to the Law on the Administration of Tax Collection and related laws, business tax, resource tax, value-added tax, income tax and other taxes should be declared and paid to the local competent tax authorities, that is, territorial taxation, and it is not allowed to change the scope of tax collection and management and the budget level of warehousing without authorization. Statistics show that some escrow cities compete for countless territorial taxes from counties. In addition, there are environmental pollution fees, urban maintenance fees and river maintenance fees. , all directly into the hands of the escrow city. 4. Eating away the natural resources of the county. In an escrow city, in order to mine the county coal mine, it is eager for quick success and instant benefit, and destructive and disorderly mining has brought serious harm to the natural environment of the county. First of all, the ground cracks and land collapses in this county, and a large number of fertile fields turn into patches of swamps or sporadic small lakes in a few years, and then industrial wastewater flows into the shallow groundwater layer from cracks during the discharge process, causing serious groundwater pollution. The disadvantages of the city governing the county listed above are only a small side. There are many similar examples all over the country, so I won't list them one by one because of space constraints. On the other hand, as far as the above cases are concerned, the central government's "reply" is "directly administered by the province", but the provincial "notice" has been changed to "administered by a city". In this regard, the provincial people's government has neither explained the reasons nor gone through certain legal procedures, depriving the people of their right to know, which is suspected of breaking the law. The people of this county believe that in order to manage the operation of this huge institution, the province will put the counties with better economic conditions under its jurisdiction, which is the so-called "taking the city by county". This incident became a joke in the local area, making the relationship between this county and the escrow city subtle. Since then, the people of the county have never stopped demanding that the county be directly administered by the province. But now it is puzzling that when the disadvantages of the system of city governing counties are obvious, many people of insight, including deputies to the National People's Congress, have called for the abolition of this system, but some places have tried their best to maintain this system, using state power to suppress people's demands for directly governing counties, and even put citizens who actively advocate directly governing counties into prison on trumped-up charges. This practice of relevant localities runs counter to the general direction of deepening political system reform proposed by the CPC Central Committee. Many areas in our country have implemented the system of city governing county for many years, and there are many disadvantages in practice. The system of city governing counties (cities) increases administrative costs, reduces work efficiency, widens urban-rural division and the gap between the rich and the poor between urban and rural people, and brings a heavy tax burden to counties and people, which violates the provisions of the Constitution. In order to get rid of the disadvantages of this administrative system, some experts and scholars put forward insightful suggestions. For example: "shrink the province, withdraw the land, strengthen the county and implement the new county system"; "Divide cities and counties and take over counties directly"; "Innovative market system". On this issue, there is a controversy in the academic circles: "There are too many counties directly under the jurisdiction of the province, and it is impossible to manage them. I am afraid that repeated construction will increase the cost of officials and management." Therefore, the reform of this administrative system has been postponed. The author believes that it is a feasible road to reform to properly restore the original counties in history. For example, the historical region of Shandong Province is basically the same as the present region. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, there were only more than 50 counties in Shandong Province, and now it is divided into 139 counties (cities, districts) on the basis of the original area, 2.5 times more than the historical counties; Even some counties are divided into five county-level counties (cities, districts) on the basis of old counties. Tengzhou City (tengxian) is a typical example. The original tengxian includes Weishan County, Xuecheng District, Shanting and jiawang district (five counties) in Xuzhou City. Even some prefecture-level cities only cover less than two counties in history, and Zaozhuang City is one of them. Now Zaozhuang City, in fact, its regional scope is less than two counties (tengxian and Shexian), and now it has formed five county-level districts and one county-level city (six counties). If historical counties are properly restored, Shandong, like the past, has only more than 50 counties. This is also easier to manage, which not only achieves the purpose of streamlining administrative management and reducing administrative management costs, but also makes people accept it. This is formed by history, not retro. From a formal point of view, the historical trajectory seems to have returned to its original position, but this is a higher level position, which is the inevitable law of historical development-spiral rise and wave progress.