China’s optimization of the business environment encourages local government to explore while reflecting distinctive dominant characteristics of central government. Using content analysis, this paper analyzes 170 central-level policies on business environment optimization from 2008 to 2020 based on the perspective of policy instruments, mines 1650 policy analysis units and 16 case nodes, and places them in a two-dimensional analysis framework of “policy instrument dimension-applying area dimension”. This two-dimensional analysis framework reveals the overall picture, core connotation, and behavioral path of business environment optimization in China. It is found that the policymakers of business environment optimization are widely but loosely connected, and there are more environment-based policy tools. The policy instruments are distributed more in the areas of government services and market environment in the process of business environment optimization. According to the different degrees of government-driven, environment-shaped, and demandresponded, the selection and configuration of policy tools present three types in business environment optimization. In the future, policy formulation should further strengthen top-level design, improve communication and coordination mechanisms between departments; enrich the variety of policy tools, increase the use of information technology, enhance the selectivity and combinability of policy tools; promote the balanced allocation of policy tools in the optimization of the business environment, improve the level of adaptation between policy tools and policy objectives, accumulate experience through practical interaction between the central and local authorities, and ultimately to achieve a comprehensive optimization of the business environment.
