MPA Master Class entitled, a lecture "How Administrative Tools Innovate the Government" was held at the Auditorium, Qiushi Building, in the morning of April 9, 2017. Professor Gao Xiaoping, Executive Vice-President and Secretary-General of the Chinese Public Administration Society (CPAS), brought the lecture to MPA students. This lecture was hosted by Professor Xu Guangjian, vice deputy dean of the School of Public Administration and Policy.

Professor Gao Xiaoping firstly defined the concept of “public administrative tools”, which generally refers to the technology, means and methods that the governments use to achieve a certain purpose of management, to fulfil a task, or to promote the development of some fields. He said that the public administrative tools can be divided into three categories (basic tools, foundational tools and genetic tools), and administrative "tool cabinet" can be divided into four dimensions (reference, history, comparison and cycle). Prof. Gao believed that how public administrative tools promote innovation is based on the “Dualistic Dichotomy”, which means that the "management tools" are separated from the "management skills". The generalized "management skills", which were the main management resources and research objects used by officials before, are separated into "management tools" and “the skills of management tools". Professor Gao thought that performance management based on “Dualistic Dichotomy” can improve the efficiency and level of government, and the crisis management based on it can enhance the efficiency and capacity of government faced with abnormal conditions, and the e-government based on it will become off-site, non-artificial, standardized, efficient and convenient.

When talking about the logic of how public administrative tools promote the innovation of government, Prof. Gao’s opinion was that the historical development of management tools is the reason and the driving force of global governance and the transformation of state governance paradigm, which is an inevitable consequence. Besides, modernization of the governance system should solve the relationship between "single" and "multiple", and it must be based on the law that the economic basis determines superstructure. And it should find the logic that is consistent with the overall goal of the socialism system with Chinese characteristics, and discover formula of “the greatest common divisor” and inclusiveness.

Finally, Prof. Gao said that separation between management tools and management skills is the expansion of the administrative management and social management. It needs processes and tools to open the various nodes to achieve structural changes in the government system, and it needs structural reform to promote transformation of governmental functions. It needs IT tools to combine the system reform with the institutional innovation, and transform the structural reform into the instrumental innovation.

Professor Gao Xiaoping provided an intensive and thought-provoking lecture about the new perspective and new ideas of the administrative tools and government innovation, which earned bursts of audience applause. After the lecture, he interacted with the students and answered their questions.