China and U.S. Collaborate on Digital Government Research

In October 2006, Sharon Dawes of the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the State University of New York at Albany and past president of the Digital Government Society of North America, traveled with a U.S. delegation to China. During that trip, the delegation of researchers and practitioners joined a similar group from China and spent several days focusing on international digital government research.

In her article about that trip, Breaching the Wall, Dawes highlighted common challenges the United States and China face in pursuing digital government strategies. The public-sector problems in both countries are "simultaneously local and global - and every level of government in both countries is affected by and challenged to do something about them."

More than a year later, something is being done to raise digital government strategies, and in China's case, increase the role of the CIO. Recent activities include knowledge exchanges around key crosscutting issues, such as creating a public CIO system in China; jointly funded research workshops and collaborations on domain-specific issues such as public health surveillance; and creating institutional relationships through collaboration agreements on operational and practical initiatives.

Building China's CIO Capability
China is currently developing its own CIO system similar to the U.S. version. This effort has come with challenges similar to those faced in America. In particular, the Chinese public sector has struggled to replace its prior business model, which was based primarily on a one-to-one relationship between project leaders and projects. Also, directors of information centers or offices traditionally were not executive-level leaders. In addition, many responsibilities beyond digital government are assigned to the appointed information executive.

To provide China some of the United States' experience as background, I traveled to Beijing in April 2007 and visited the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science to provide an overview of the U.S. public CIO system's evolution. This session contributed to the ongoing effort to build a CIO system that takes advantage of lessons learned elsewhere, but also reflects the uniqueness of China and its vision of digital government.

Wu Jiang, dean of the Academy of Personnel Science, in a November 2007 presentation at the Chinese e-Government Forum, cited four problems with China's current system: CIOs do not have enough authority; responsibilities and roles are not clear; responsibilities and capabilities don't match, so even when directors have power, they don't always know how to manage technology and information; and China lacks a personnel system to recruit, retain and properly compensate public CIOs because the position is new to Chinese government.

China is now considering three changes:
· adopting a structure that can match the responsibility, power, interests and capabilities of CIOs;
· implementing a scientific and systematic human resource system to formalize the appointment, evaluation and management of public CIOs; and
· establishing efficient and well coordinated IT management structures.

Yuanfu Jiang, e-government director at the National School of Administration, recently started a new program to help create a network of individuals with CIO-like responsibility in China. In late 2007, Dr. Jiang formed a new CIO association to bring individuals with CIO-level responsibility together on a regular basis. As it did in the United States, the two-pronged approach - creating new policies and organizational structures, and building communities for CIOs - appears to be making a difference.

Joint Digital Government Studies
In April 2007, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) launched an exploratory effort to jointly fund digital government activities, which will create synergy, identify common research interests and explore ways to establish long-term international collaboration between the two countries.