Title China's Regulations on Open Government Information: Challenges of Nationwide Policy Implementation

China's Regulations on Open Government Information introduce a freedom of information style disclosure mechanism across China from 1 May 2008. Despite sincere political commitment, the central government is facing enormous obstacles in ensuring consistent implementation of the regulations nationwide. The center is not providing a strong legal text or clear directives to guide implementation. Rather, central ministries and local governments are developing a range of implementation models. This allows for innovation in government organs already committed to the open government information policy, but leaves major problems with compliance amongst government organs that see no benefit in information disclosure.