Shared incentives: Two superpowers, one bureaucratic playbook

The year 2025 has not been kind to US-Chinese relations. Tit-for-tat tariffs, disputes over rare earth elements, and rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific have further strained ties between the world’s two largest economies.

These developments are often framed as a clash of fundamentally different systems: democracy versus autocracy, market liberalism versus state-led growth, individualism versus collectivism. Such narratives dominate political speeches and media commentary alike.

But this top-down framing obscures a critical reality. Regardless of ideology, both superpowers are governed day to day by the same type of actors: career bureaucrats. And when examined up close, Chinese and US bureaucracies look far more alike than their political rhetoric suggests.

We are part of an international team of researchers studying bureaucratic preferences and behavior. Earlier this year, we convened a workshop bringing together scholars and practitioners from China, the United States and elsewhere to compare how bureaucratic agencies respond to global challenges.

Our research, alongside a growing body of comparative scholarship, shows that officials in China and the US operate under similar incentives and constraints. These shared pressures lead them to act in strikingly similar ways, despite the ideological rivalry at the leadership level. When it comes to drafting regulations, enforcing compliance, or managing crises, practice often converges even when politics diverges.

This is not to deny important differences. China’s bureaucracy is more centralized and larger, with roughly 8 million civil servants as of 2024. The US system is more fragmented across federal, state and local levels and employs about 3 million federal officials.

Yet comparative research consistently finds that bureaucrats around the world respond similarly to complex governance problems. Whether they work in Brazilian municipalities, European development agencies, or international organisations, civil servants pursue career advancement within politically embedded institutions. They seek expertise, avoid controversy, and try to anticipate shifting political priorities.

Chinese and American bureaucrats are no exception. Both operate in environments where political demands change rapidly and where missteps can have severe professional consequences.

Foreign aid policy illustrates these parallels well. At first glance, US and Chinese approaches appear to be moving in opposite directions. China created the China International Development Cooperation Agency in 2018 and has steadily expanded its overseas engagement. The US, by contrast, abolished USAID in early 2025, cut foreign aid budgets, and absorbed remaining staff into the State Department.

Yet beneath these institutional changes lie common bureaucratic challenges. In both countries, foreign aid officials must reconcile political directives with technical expertise, oversee taxpayer-funded projects abroad, and manage skeptical domestic audiences.

Their core task is to enhance national “soft power” while avoiding the perception that scarce resources are being wasted overseas. In Washington, where the Trump administration has portrayed foreign aid as wasteful, officials face pressure to demonstrate clear returns for US interests and to support leaders deemed politically friendly. This emphasis on transactional diplomacy mirrors long-standing Chinese principles of mutual benefit.

Meanwhile, Chinese aid bureaucrats are moving away from headline-grabbing megaprojects toward smaller, welfare-oriented initiatives described as “small but beautiful.” This shift aligns more closely with the people-centered rhetoric traditionally associated with US development assistance prior to 2025.

Environmental governance offers another revealing comparison. One might expect bureaucrats operating under different political systems to respond differently to pollution crises. In practice, both tend to be guided by blame avoidance.

Policy failures carry asymmetric risks. Success may bring modest recognition, but failure can end careers. As a result, officials often focus less on learning from mistakes than on shifting responsibility elsewhere.

In China, this dynamic was evident in Hebei province’s anti-pollution campaign. In 2017, central authorities ordered drastic reductions in coal heating to curb air pollution near Beijing. Provincial officials, eager to demonstrate compliance and avoid blame, enforced the policy rigidly. The result was severe hardship for residents, including unheated schools during winter.

When public outrage followed, responsibility was deflected. Media narratives targeted Beijing’s middle class for valuing clean air over social welfare, rather than scrutinizing bureaucratic decision-making at either the local or national level.

A similar pattern unfolded in Flint, Michigan. Financially distressed and under state-appointed emergency management, the city switched its water source to cut costs. The decision led to widespread lead contamination and a public health crisis. As scrutiny intensified, responsibility was fragmented among local officials, state regulators, and federal agencies, each attempting to deflect blame.

Parallel dynamics also emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chinese authorities were often credited with an “authoritarian advantage” that allowed swift, decisive action. But bureaucratic careerism constrained evidence-based policymaking in both China and the US.

Officials in both systems were risk-averse and reluctant to contradict political superiors. Early responses were marked by uncertainty, fragmented information, and hesitation—despite very different institutional settings.

In China, these dynamics contributed to delays during the critical early phase of the outbreak, even though they were later obscured by an official narrative emphasizing efficiency and success. In the US, decentralization produced similar delays and inconsistencies. In both countries, bureaucratic caution had real public health consequences and eroded public trust.

At a time of intensifying geopolitical rivalry, it is easy to overlook the stabilizing role of bureaucracy. Political leaders set agendas, but bureaucrats translate rhetoric into action. And that translation is shaped more by institutional incentives than by ideology.

The core operating logic of Chinese and American bureaucracies has remained remarkably stable over time. This continuity is increasingly reflected in converging leadership styles, with both systems exhibiting centralized authority, campaign-style politics, and heightened personalization of power.

There is an upside to this convergence. Similar bureaucratic behavior makes both superpowers more predictable, even amid heated rhetoric. Grand announcements rarely translate immediately into action; they are filtered through routines, procedures, and risk calculations.

In volatile times, those routines act as an anchor of stability — reminding us that while politics divides, bureaucracy often unites in practice.

The Conversation