Abstract: This paper aims to develop an analytical framework that characterizes China's unique government-business relations during the reform era. The focus is on the relationship between the government and non-state enterprises, manifested primarily at the local level due to the unique block-line administrative system in China. These relations are shaped by two co-existing competitions:the political competition by officials in bureaucracy and the economic competition by businessmen in market. The result is a political achievement-commercial performance nexus:the mutually beneficial exchange between political achievements (desired by local officials) and commercial performances (desired by private entrepreneurs). On the one hand, due to the intensity of the competition in both politics and economy, this relational nexus is performance-oriented, open-ended, and contractual, similar to the typical market exchanges. However, on the other hand, it is also driven by personalized political incentives (or career concerns) of local officials and supported by the mutual trust between local officials and private business owners. In this sense, China's government-business relations are characterized by a mixing and matching of institutionalization (such as performance orientation, openness, and contractibility) and personalization (such as personalized career concerns and mutual trust). It is in a stark contrast with the clearly-defined, rule-based, and transparent relations in the western countries, or the traditional kinship or clan-based relationships prevalent in developing countries, or other special interests based patron-client relationships. Nevertheless, the political achievement-commercial performance nexus is affected in scope and strength by the political hierarchy of local officials and the interregional mobility of private enterprises. As a result, a multi-facet, multi-level and multi-dimensional local growth alliance and a government-business complex are formed and centered around the political achievement-commercial performance nexus between local bureaucrats and private business owners. Overall, the Chinese style performance-oriented government-business relations have provided a pro-private business environment and thus have served as a quasi-institutionalized basis for the rise of private business and China's rapid growth during the reform era while the nation-level legal protection for private business has remained insufficient.

Key words: government-business relations, local growth coalition, political achieve- ment-commercial performance nexus, bureaucratic and economic markets