自趙紫陽在中共「十三大」提出以「轉變政府職能」為原則的機構改革新思路以來，中共政權於一九八八年、一九九三年、一九九八年先後進行三次以「轉變政府職能」為原則的國務院機構改革o中共都是先在黨的最高權力機構全國代表大會上制定出國務院機構改革的理論與政策，然後由國務院向最高政權機構全國人民代表大會提出國務院機構改革方案，經全國人民代表大會審議批准後再交由國務院執行。中共這種「以黨領政」的政治運作模式，突顯出中國共產黨的領導地位，同時從中共「十三大」、「十四大」到「十五大J'也顯示出中共當局逐步深化轉變政府職能理論與推動機構改革的軌跡。從國務院機構改革的成效看，一九八八年是失敗的;一九九三年只是小幅度改革，未達成轉變政府職能:一九九八年則是邁向轉變政府職能的大幅度改革，其成效還有待觀察與評估。

At the CCP's Thirteenth National Congress， Zhao Ziyang put forth the principle of “transformingthe functions of government organs" in the course of promoting government structural reform. From then on， mainland China's State Council has undergone structural reform three times， in 1988， 1993 and 1998 respectively. Each of these three times， the State Council drafted the plan for its own structural reform based on the principles and policies decided at the CCP's National Congress and then submitted the plan to the National People's Congress for ratification. This operational model signifies the continued leadership position of the Party over politics. The work to carryon the government functional transformation and to promote government structural reform continued both in theory and in practice in the CCP's Fourteenth and Fifteenth National Congresses. As far as the State Council's structural reform is concerned， the 1988 reformation attempt should be considered a failure， while efforts in 1993 were too limited in scope to achieve the purpose of transforming government functions. The 1998 reform has been made at a larger scale， although the results have yet to be seen.