The Improved Information Environment: One Key Rationale for FOI Reform in China

This paper examines the influence of the improved Chinese information environment, which comprises four streams of information flows: information flow within the government/the supply side, information flow within the public/the demand side, push/proactive disclosure, pull/reactive disclosure, on China’s capacity to accept Freedom of Information (FOI). It compares different information management approaches to crises taken by the Chinese government over time, and argues that without the improvement of the information environment due to the formation of multiple paths for information flow, the Chinese government would have been unlikely to be receptive to FOI reform.