China Section 3

 Organization of the State

 National People’s congress is the “highest organ of state power”
 Mao said that “the force at the core leading our cause forward is the Chinese Communists Party”
 Party leader is an unchallenged principle of political life in China
 Maoism, or Mao Zedong Thought: adaptation of Marxism-Leninism to China’s special
circumstances, particularly its emphasis on the peasant-based revolution
 Deng Xiaoping Thought: added by the CCP in 1997, reflects Deng’s role in justifying the country’s
use of market forces to promote the growth of the economy
 Three Represents: added in 2002, reflects Jiang Zemin’s ideas about expanding the CCP to
incorporate all sectors of Chinese society, including private entrepreneurs
 Most people have lost faith in the Communist ideology because of the CCP’s erratic and
repressive leadership
 The PRC and the CCP have two different constitution
 China’s Constitution
 Repeated references to the fact that the country is under the CCP’s leadership
 Defined as a “socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship”
 Gives CCP authority to exercise dictatorship over any person or organization that it believes
is opposed to socialism and the party
 Less a governing document than a political statement
 1975: the constitution at that time refers to an unfinished “struggle between the socialist road
and the capitalist road”
 1982: current PRC constitution adopted
 1993: PRC constitution amended to replace references to the superiority of central planning
and state ownership with phrases more consistent with capitalist economic reforms
 Constitution specifies the structures and powers of subnational levels
 The Executive
 The Chinese Communist Party
 CCP Constitution specifics party structures and functions on both the national and local level,
distribution of authority among party organizations, requirements for joining, expected
behavior of members, procedures for rule infractions
 Individual power, factional maneuvering and guanxi are more important
 Ex. Deng Xiaopeng never occupied any of the top executive offices but was still the most
powerful individual from 1978-1997; sources of power came from seniority, guanxi, and
advocacy of widely supported ideas
 Formal structures of power have assumed greater importance for understanding who has
power and how decisions are made
 “Highest leading body” under the CCP constitution are the National Party Congress and the
Central Committee
 National Party Congress: approve decisions already made by top leader and provide a
showcase for the party’s current policies, has one week of meetings every five years
 Central Committee: consists of CCP leaders from around the country who meet annually
for a week, members are elected for a five year term by the NPC by secret ballot, overall
composition by top leader to ensure compliance with policies, job is to direct party affairs
when the Congress is not in session, but effectiveness is limited, work conferences
represent significant gathers of the party elite
  The Government of the PRC
 Formally vested in a system of people’s congresses:
National People’s Congress  Provincial  Municipal  Rural  ….
 Congresses are empowered to supervise the work of the people’s governments but
government executives are subject to party authority
 NCP elects the president and vice-president, but there is only one candidate
 President
 China’s head of state
 One term is five years, with a two-term limit
 Under Mao, Jiang and Hu, the leader of the CCP concurrently serves as leader of the
PRC
 Meets and negotiates with other world leaders
 Prime minister
 Head of the government and has authority overbureaucracy and policy implementation
 Formally appointed by the president with NPC approval, in reality CCP chooses
 The Bureaucracy
 State Council
 The highest organ of state administration
 Appointed by the NPC
 Functions like a cabinet, with varying size
 Ministers run either functionally specific departments or organizations with more
comprehensive responsibilities
 Cadres: peoples in positions of authority who are paid by the government or party
 Some work directly for the government, and others occupy posts in economic enterprises
 2001: Plan announced to reduce bureaucracy
 One of the most significant reforms has been the implementation of measures to limit how
long officials can stay in their jobs with some exceptions
 Government and party cadres must retire between the ages of sixty to seventy
 Two-term limit for all top cadres
 Other State Institutions
 The Military and the Police
 People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
 Encompasses the ground, air, and naval armed forces
 2.5 million active personnel
 China has a Military Service Law that applies to all citizens between the ages of eighteen and
twenty-two and gives the government the power to conscript men and women
  Military spending has increased in double-digit percentages every year for more than a
decade
 Military has never held formal political power, but there have always been close ties between
the political and military leaders of the CCP serving in both political and military capacities
 No military offices in the Standing Committee (most elite)
 Central Committee is 20% PLA reps
 PRC Central Military Commissions and CCP Central Military Commissions
 Supposed to be two distinct organizations, but basically overlap
 Chair of the PRC CMC is elected by the NPC
 PRC CMC Chair = commander in chief of Chinese armed forces
 Ministry of State Security: combats espionage and gathers intelligence
 Ministry of Public Security
 Maintenance of law and order, investigation of crimes, surveillance of people being
suspected of being a threat to the state
 Maintains an extensive system of labor camps
 Has the authority to indefinitely detain people without a formal charge, and use
administrative sanctions to levy fines or sentence detainees for up to four years
 The Judiciary
 Four-tiered “people’s court” system
 Supreme People’s Court: supervises the work of the lower courts and the application of
the country’s laws, does not exercise judicial review
 Higher (province-level)
 Intermediate (city-level)
 Grassroots (county and township level)
 People’s procuratorate: a nationwide organization which serves in courts as a public
prosecutor and has investigatory functions in criminal case
 Citizen mediation committees: based in urban neighborhoods and rural villages, they settle a
large majority of civil cases outs of court
 Chinese judicial system has been changed during the Cultural Revolution
 Enormous surge of lawsuits filed in recent years
 Great faith is placed in the abiity of an official investigation to find facts of a case
 Harsh criminal justice system
 Long terms, subject to only cursory appeal
 Sometimes capital punishment is used  In 2004, China led in the number of executions
 “China has become a country where there is rule by law but it is still far from having
established the role of law”
  Subnational Government
 Layers of subnational, each organization is under the supervision of the next highest level of
government and the CCP = conflicting lines of authority
 Four main layers of state structure: central  province  city  county  rural town
 Four centrally administered cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqin
 Five autonomous regions: Tibet, Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Guangxi
 Each layer has a representative people’s congress and plays a limited role in managing
affairs
 Central government still retains power to intervene in local affairs
 Rural villages have a population of 500-1000 which are technically self-governing and have
villages leaders directly elected by local residents as well has representative assemblies
 Most important person is still the local CCP leader
 The Policy-Making Process
 Mao: Policy-making is basically “Mao-in-command” system
 Now: “fragmented authoritarianism” where policymaking is under the control of the CCP
 CCP uses a weblike system of organizational controls
 Cadre list: similar to the nomenklatura