Chapter 2 analyzes the rises and falls of China’s government revenue in the last four decades. It estimates the size of China’s government revenue which includes general fiscal revenue, government fund, social security fund, and operating income from state-owned capital, as well as extra-budgetary revenue. It discusses China’s tax reforms and analyzes the reasons for the ups and downs of the general fiscal revenue and other government revenues. It compares the size of China’s government revenue with other countries, showing that the ratio of total government revenue in GDP in China is quite large now. It also discusses the characteristics of China's government revenue system. This chapter finally examines the problems in the current revenue system, and discusses factors affecting future government revenue.

This chapter concludes the overview of the indicators of policy moods – for citizens, legislators, senators, and presidents – and policy orientations that we have constructed. As measures of the stages in our chain of representation, they will help us understand patterns of congruence and responsiveness in further chapters in Part III. We hope to convince the reader that our measures of the policy moods of citizens and policy-makers, and our measures of the policy orientations of governments, are useful representations of the underlying concepts for which we wish to account.