Editor's note: Ma Liang is a professor at the School of Government at Peking University. The article reflects the author's opinion and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

"What gets measured gets done." Also, "no measurement, no management." Performance measurement is core to government management, and it is pivotal to transform it to adapt to national priorities and public demands. In the past four decades, China has been transforming from focusing on just economic growth to prioritizing people's well-being, and the government is redefining government performance measurement to facilitate Chinese modernization.

Cadres' views of performance and achievements are largely shaped by institutions of government performance measurement and personnel management, and the right measures and meritocracy-based career promotion help to develop a service-oriented government and a healthy bureaucratic culture. Otherwise, if performance measurement is outdated and distorted, there would be attention deviation, resource misalignment, gaming and manipulations.

The traditional development paradigm focused on economic growth, and usually at the cost of ecological environment, labor rights and people's livelihood. Government performance measurement overemphasized the size of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its growth speed, largely neglecting ecological costs, income inequality and public service deficits. Globally, people call for alternative measures of well‑being beyond GDP to address the limitations and ramifications of government performance measurement systems centered on GDP.

In line with the global momentum to abolish GDP for better measures, China introduces the concept of government performance emphasizing "the people's sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security" as core values and metrics, which is aligning with the concept of "people-centered development." Governments at all levels are incentivized to pay attention to public service delivery and people's livelihood, and fiscal resources and programs are leveraged towards social and environmental policy areas.

China's five-year plan and annual target management include more and more indicators related to social and environmental development, steering local cadres to focus on people's well-being. For instance, the "battle for blue skies" movement and its performance measurement have helped China to alleviate urban air pollution.

Apart from the target-based responsibility systems, people's satisfaction has been increasingly highlighted in government performance measurement. People are sampled and surveyed to elicit their attitudes towards governments and public services and governments are mobilized to pay attention to public service quality and address people's grievances. For instance, the 12345 hotline is the hub of urban residents' voices and preferences, and indicators like response rate and satisfaction rate are used to measure government performance.

China's role in global governance

China plays an increasingly indispensable role in global governance, and the government is committed to monitoring and achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). China created a miracle in human history to eradicate poverty, which is attributable to strong political willingness and appropriate performance measurement. Similarly, China's achievements of SDG indicators in areas such as ecology, education and healthcare are also a course of performance measurement and continuous improvement.

China's government performance measurement is not solely top-down but also bottom-up, and the two-way interactions help to facilitate performance information circulation and uses. The trickle-down performance indicator disaggregation helps to transform international commitment into national priorities, and then into regional targets and local goals, making them actionable and traceable. This approach ensures government performance is of creditable commitment, and national plans are effectively implemented to achieve expected results.

Meanwhile, the bottom-up public deliberation and consultation helps to incorporate emerging topics and issues into government performance measurement, making it more adaptable to current and future developmental prioritization. Local initiatives, pilots and experiments are identified through performance benchmarking, and they are soon learned and widely diffused across regions. Some of them are adapted, and become nationwide policies.

Government performance measurement is not only to punish or reward cadres, but also about how to use performance information for issue identification, policy-making and implementation. China is leading in digital government, and big data analytics and artificial intelligence is used to facilitate smart measurement and visualize performance. Thousands of urban indicators are aggregated and integrated into timely, comprehensive and precise performance indexes automatically diagnosing city development and governance quality. Creative performance indicators are developed through smart city initiatives, and they are replacing traditional measures to help make smarter decisions.

China's government performance measurement is core to Chinese modernization, and offers Global South countries a new governance paradigm fundamentally distinct from the Western model of "election-cycle-driven governance." It is not only useful for China's governance, but relevant for other countries eager for better development. Against the backdrop of intensifying deficits of global development and governance, this concept of governance performance measurement holds significant value as a reference for other countries.