The Chinese Party-State

Outline
• Center of the party-state
– Party structure at the center
– Government structure at the center
– National People’s Congress
• Local structure of party-state
– Local people’s congresses
– Local Party & government organs
 Communist party-state
• Organizational design of political system
– the difficult task of institutionalization
• Mao Zedong borrowed from
– the Leninist party-state of the Soviet Union
– the imperial system of ancient China
• principles of guardianship and hierarchy
• Mao added the idea of the “mass line”
 Common Features
• The political systems of imperial China
and the former Soviet Union
• centralized control
• bureaucratic administration
• the role of ideology
– no room for private, individual interests
– no room for organized opposition to the state
 Changes in the System
• Great Leap Forward & Cultural Revolution
• political reforms in the post-Mao era
• substantive issues, policies, and the
allocation of power have changed greatly
• the formal structure of the political system
has endured
 Communist party-state
• Guardianship
– the Party represents the historical best
interests of the people
– the “people’s democratic dictatorship” allows
no organized opposition to party leadership
• Hierarchy of party and govt. organizations
– “democratic centralism”
– consultation and implementation
P a rty S tru c tu re G o ve rn m e nt S tru c tu re

C e n te r C e n te r

P ro v in c e P ro v in c e

C it y C it y

C o u n ty /D is trict C o u n ty/D is tric t

T o w n s h ip T o w n s h ip

V illa g e Village
 CCP General Secretary
• Hu Jintao (2002 - 2012)
• Xi Jinping (2012 - 2022?)
 Politburo Standing Committee
• Each heads party work in one area
– organization and personnel
– propaganda and education
– finance and economy
– political-legal affairs
– foreign affairs
– etc.
 CCP Central Committee
• About 200 members (and 150 alternate)
• membership in CC reflects political power
• Central Committee departments:
– Department of Organization
– Department of Propaganda
– Department of United Front
– Department of International Liaison
 CCP National Congress
• Meets every 5 years since 1977
– 1977,1982,1987,1992,1997,2002,2007,2012
– 19th National Party Congress
– October 2017
– 2280 delegates
• elects
– Central Committee
 PRC Head of State
• President
• Jiang Zemin
– 1993 - 2003
– also the then CCP General Secretary
• Hu Jintao
– 2003 - 2013
– also the then CCP General Secretary
• Xi Jinping (2013 - 2023?)
 Central Government
• Premier:
– Li Keqiang (2013 – 2023?)
• State Council
• 26 Ministries and Commissions
– Ministry of Foreign Affairs
– Ministry of National Defense
– Development and Reform Commission
– People’s Bank of China, etc.
 Central Military Commission
• Commanders-in-chief of the People’s
Liberation Army
• in both the central Party and government
structures
• same composition
• Chair: Xi Jinping
• 11 members
 National People’s Congress
• According to the constitution, the highest
organization of state authority
• NPC Standing Committee
– the permanent body of NPC exercises all but
the most formal powers of the NPC
• 10 Special Committees
– constitution and laws, nationalities, agriculture
and rural, foreign affairs, etc.
 National People’s Congress
• NPC plenary sessions
– meet annually in Beijing
– for about 2 weeks
• the nearly 3,000 deputies are elected
– for 5-year terms
– by provincial-level people’s congresses
 Power Relationship

CCP Politburo

National PC State Council

 Local People’s Congresses
People’s Congresses Elected by
National Provincial PC’s
Province City PC’s
City County or district PC’s
County Eligible voters
Township Eligible voters
 Provincial Level Governments
• 22 Provinces
• 5 Autonomous
Regions
• 4 Municipalities
• 2 Special
Administrative
Regions
 5 Autonomous Regions
• Inner Mongolia (population 24 million)
• Xinjiang Uygur (pop. 26 million)
• Guangxi Zhuang
– 50 million
• Ningxia Hui
– 7 million
• Tibet
– 3.6 million
Directly Administered Cities
Special Administrative Regions
• Hong Kong (since 1997)
• Macau (since 1999)
 Local Governments
• 333 at the rank of prefectures:
– 293 cities at the rank of prefectures
• 2845 at the rank of counties:
– 382 county-level cities
– 1,500 counties
– 963 city districts
• 39,945 at the rank of townships/towns
• (over 600,000 at the rank of villages)
 Local Party Structure
• 4 million party committees, party general
branches, and party branches
• provinces, cities, counties, townships, and
villages
• enterprises
– state-owned enterprises
– private enterprises
 Replicated at lower levels

Local party committee

local people’s congress local government