Centralized-minimalist government: The lake weishan issue and the chinese mediatory system of government

The Lake Weishan issue refers to a protracted border dispute between Shandong and Jiangsu provinces and its mediation by the central government. This dispute, ongoing since 1959 and finally resolved forty years later, reached it highest intensity during the beginning of the Reform era. Based mainly on local archives, this article retells the story of the mediation by the central government from 1980 to 1985, tracing how the decision concerning the unified management of water conservancy in the lake region was reached and the earlier inter-ministerial demarcation scheme was shelved, and how the central government's "three central documents" came into being. Through the story of Lake Weishan we can expand our understanding of China's practice of what has been called centralized-minimalist governance. However, to synthesize centralized governance on the one hand and daily minimalist governance on the other in a new theoretical narrative is the over-arching objective behind this thick description of one individual case.