It's centralised because the central government sets the direction and priorities but in reality provinces and local governments have a lot of autonomy and the

It's centralised because the central government sets the direction and priorities but in reality provinces and local governments have a lot of autonomy and the central government sometimes struggles to keep them in check. The main issue, IMHO, is that because there are no checks and balances (no independent judiciary, etc) local chiefs are all powerful and can do whatever they want (and line their pockets) as long as they don't get on Beijing's radar. That's a reason they don't 'like' demonstrations and unrest... And that may be a contributing factor in trying to hide the initial Covid outbreak, for instance: they didn't want negative info to escalate all the way to Beijing.