Professor Li Shuguang is the assistant director of the Graduate School of the China University of Political Science

Li Shuguang: This is primarily an issue of the government's ability to manage popular trust. Modern political science tells us that government is a structure for the provision of public goods and services – in a sense, an institution whose success depends entirely on credibility, which comes from the quality and level of public services, and from the quality of public goods. These things determine the degree of trust in government. There must also be management of trust in government. In a market economy system, the government's policymaking process is to a certain extent simply managing confidence. If there is no trust, the market reaction will be the penalty, as the market has its own mechanisms for redress – increasing accountability through resignation of a chief executive or cabinet members, for example. However, under a planned economic system there is also a need for supervision of confidence in government, although the approach for managing confidence is different than what takes place under a market economic system. In a planned economy, large-scale government intervention in the economy takes place, however, it is not based on the profit motive – all of the links between government and economy are 'to serve the people', and will ultimately be returned to the people.

Why can government influence be so strong under a planned economic system? Because it maintains a clear distance from economic interest. Although this is not an explicit management of trust in government, it is based on a belief system that creates such trust, namely, that government actions are not tainted by any possibility of economic profit. So, during the era of the planned economy, despite the lack of a management concept or strategy, the government was still able to maintain a considerable degree of popular confidence.

Observer: Unfortunately, the problem lies in the reform period?

Li: Exactly. During economic reform, the traditional belief system that confidence was based upon fell away, while the requirements for management of trust in a market economy had not been established. As a result, the group of previously 'not for profit' organizations began to seek a profit. It was from this background that problems for the Dental Prevention and Treatment Advisory Group (DPTAG) emerged.