A staff member demonstrates a smart city interactive sandbox at the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei 5G+ Industrial Internet Intelligent Manufacturing Collaborative Innovation Demonstration Base in the Qinhuangdao Economic and Technological Development Zone, Hebei Province. Photo: IC PHOTO

The city represents a highly advanced form of human civilization. Modern urban governance must navigate complex and fluid dynamics across demographic, economic, social, cultural, and ecological spheres. It must also address challenges posed by the multidimensional and networked structure of urban space, the systemic and intelligent evolution of urban operations, and the decentralized, diversified landscape of stakeholders. The rule of law serves as both the standard and the foundation for achieving smart and efficient urban governance. 

Rule of law as guarantee of governance 

First, smart and efficient urban governance requires building an integrated and collaborative governance body to achieve coordination in rules, standards, and information among government departments and across regions, encouraging social and market actors to participate in rule-making, to fully articulate their interests, and to assume public responsibilities. The rule of law contributes to the optimization of government functions, the establishment of a multistakeholder co-governance structure, and the formation of a stable governance framework. 

Second, smart and efficient urban governance necessitates the development of a real-time, multidimensional risk prevention and control system capable of addressing hazards stemming from the dense, nonlinear interaction of population, resources, technology, and institutions within limited urban spaces. It must also guard against emerging “intelligent risks,” such as technological runaway and digital divides. The rule of law contributes by enabling robust mechanisms to address both traditional and nontraditional risks, rendering them perceptible, identifiable, and controllable. 

Third, smart and efficient urban governance demands a comprehensive innovation support mechanism to balance the tension between freedom and order in the course of governance innovation, while continuously improving governance tools. The rule of law provides regulatory safeguards for data utilization, technological iteration, and multistakeholder collaboration, thus granting legitimacy to smart and efficient governance. 

Legal demands in new scenarios 

Smart and efficient urban governance encompasses a wide range of scenarios in public security, government affairs, and public services. These scenarios arise from data-driven processes, technological empowerment, and institutional innovation—entailing a broad spectrum of legal demands. 

Automated administration is among the most common scenarios of smart and efficient governance. Its primary legal challenge lies in the protection of personal information and privacy. In areas such as public security and traffic management, technologies such as facial recognition are widely used to identify individual perpetrators. These applications must comply with the principles of legality and proportionality while also providing avenues for redress. In cases where automated systems are used to make decisions affecting individual rights and interests, the algorithms must be subject to scrutiny to ensure transparency, and the administrative counterparts must also be able to request manual reviews of such decisions. 

Automated administration involves multiple actors, including administrative authorities, technology providers and users, as well as reviewers. When errors occur—such as system malfunctions, data breaches, or flawed decisions—technology providers may bear partial responsibility if technical attribution can be established. However, the core principle of accountability remains: those who exercise control bear responsibility. 

Big data analytics is a foundational technology for smart and efficient governance. Like automated administration, it raises issues regarding personal information and privacy protection. Government profiling of individuals or groups must not exceed the scope and limits necessary to fulfill statutory duties. Algorithmic bias in big data analysis can result in erroneous decisions or discriminatory effects, especially against marginalized groups. 

Managing key legal relationships 

Smart and efficient urban governance constitutes a modernization revolution in China’s urban governance system and capacity. Several key legal relationships should be carefully managed throughout its development and implementation. 

Government and society: Smart and efficient governance should follow a model of government leadership, social collaboration, and public participation. A well-functioning government must fulfill its duties in accordance with the law, regulate the exercise of power, and improve administrative efficiency. An efficient market should play a decisive role in resource allocation. 

Technology and values: Smart and efficient governance should integrate technological rationality with value-based rationality, fostering an ethical paradigm of “responsible innovation.” As people are at the heart of the city, the ultimate goal of smart and efficient urban governance is the free and holistic development of individuals. A people-centered approach must be upheld to ensure that technology serves to realize human values—not the reverse. 

Efficiency and equity: Governance must strike a dynamic balance between efficiency and fairness, with an expanded notion of equity that encompasses both material and digital rights. 

Humans and AI: While preserving human agency, smart and efficient governance should foster a new governance ecosystem in which humans and machines share values, co-construct knowledge, and complement one another’s capabilities. To enhance AI’s trustworthiness, intelligent agents must adhere to fundamental principles such as beneficence, non-maleficence, fairness, transparency, and human agency, with the goal of augmenting human capacity—not replacing it. 

Yu Wenhao is a professor from the School of Law at Central University of Finance and Economics. 

Edited by WANG YOURAN