China's Economic Policy Factory: The NDRC

Who decides the size of Shanghai Disneyland (116 hectares, now under construction), how thin plastic bags should be (no less than 0.025 millimeters), sets gasoline prices and taxi fares, and recently used its sweeping power to fine China’s two best-known liquor companies 449 million yuan ($73.25 million)? It’s the National Development and Reform Commission, the biggest, most powerful Chinese bureaucracy, with responsibility over broad swathes of China’s $8.5 trillion economy, and day-to-day authority that sometimes rivals that of Premier Li Keqiang’s State Council, its putative boss.

Now, the commission may get its wings clipped. Reuters reported in late May that newly appointed Premier Li had rejected an urbanization proposal drafted by the commission for not being reform-oriented enough. That sparked a flurry of Chinese news reports that culminated in top commission officials publicly denying their plan is in jeopardy.