This article examines how the Chinese government came to endorse the concept of performance management, and analyses the experiments with performance management since the early 1990s (mainly at the local level). The incentives are examined, especially the performance-based reward and promotion system. The article discusses China’s experience with performance management in various sectors, including organisational restructuring and human resource management in the civil service, performance and results management and the “objective responsibility system”, and the attempts to improve accountability and performance in the delivery of public services. Citizen participation in performance management is also examined, and case studies of local practice.