In the US, government hasn't really gotten into this in a big way. Too many governmental units with their own local authority. China, though, or the UK, where t

In the US, government hasn't really gotten into this in a big way. Too many governmental units with their own local authority. China, though, or the UK, where the central government has total authority... I used to think that China's central government would say "jump" and everyone else would ask "how high?" But after several years of reading about central government initiatives being hobbled by provincial/local officials[1], I'm not so sure. It could be that the central government is just better about preventing knowledge of their relatively weak control circulate abroad (limited press freedom, plus language barriers that prevent most Westerners from reading what ordinary Chinese people might be writing about.) [1] Like the central government trying to reduce air pollution while local officials try to keep as many coal workers as busy as possible.