AP Comp Gov - China Government Structure

China Government Structure

Essential Political Features

• Communist Party Authoritarian Regime
• Unicameral National People’s Congress
• Unitary system
• Provinces

Political Authoritarianism

• Based on Soviet Model
• Interlocking state and Party hierarchies
• Soviet party membership 7%
• China party membership 5%
• Lenin’s ideology: in order for the revolutionary transition to take place it was necessary to maintain the “dictatorship of the proletariat”

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

Chinese Communist Party-CCP

• CCP governs according to DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM
• Party member is subordinate to party organization
• Lower level subordinate to higher level
• All members subordinate to Party’s National Congress and the Central Committee

Organization of the CCP

• The party has a separate constitution of 1982
• 64.5 Million Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members (5.2% of the population)
• Theoretically, the party’s highest body is the National Party Congress (NCP)
• Meets every 5 years
• Legislative body of the party
• Nearly 3,000 members
• Sessions mostly used to announce changes in policy and leadership
• The NPC selects the Central Committee which in turn selected the Politburo
• Become more liberal – secret ballots, more candidates than seats since 1980s

CCP National Congress

• Meets every 5 years since 1977
• Elects:
• Central Committee
• On most ballots candidates run unopposed

CCP Central Committee

• About 200 members (and 150 alternate)
• Membership in CC reflects political power
• Central Committee departments
• Dpt of Organization
• Dpt of Propaganda
• Dpt of United Front
• Dpt of International Liaison

Politburo Standing Committee

• Meets weekly to discuss policy
• Each heads party work in one area
• Organization and personnel
• Propaganda and education
• Finance and economy
• Political-legal affairs
• Foreign affairs
• Etc

CCP General Secretary

• Jiang Zemin (1989-2002)
• Hu Jintao (2002- )

Party Bureaucracy

• Secretariat
• Oversees the implementation of Politburo decisions
• Distribution of propaganda to support these decisions

Societal Control

• Danwei “unit”
• Chinese citizens given a lifetime affiliation with a specific industrial, agricultural, or bureaucratic work unit that dictates all aspects of their lives
• Including housing, health care and other social benefits
• Hukou “household registration”
• All Chinese tied to a specific geographic location
• In 2003, officials announced a plan to distribute embedded microchip identification cards
• 100-150 million workers have abandoned their hukou and have no danwei affiliation

Backgrounds of Party Members

• Transition in party members recently:
• Cadres were peasants or factory workers, and few were intellectuals or professionals originally
• Increasingly “technocratic”
• Today less than 40 percent of party members come from the peasantry, although peasants still make up the largest single group within the CCP
• The fastest growing membership category consists of officials, intellectuals, technicians, and other professionals
• Women make up only about 20 percent of the membership and only about 4 percent of the Central Committee

Constitution of 1982

• Provided a legal basis for the broad changes in China’s social and economic institutions
• Limited private economic activity
• Rural collectives have the right “to farm private plots, engage in household sideline production, and raise privately owned livestock.”
• 2004 amendment protects private property rights
• Significantly revised government structure and procedures
• No lifelong tenure in leadership positions
• Reconfirms the NPC as head government organ
• Abolished the “Four Big Rights”
• To speak out freely, air views fully, hold great debates, and write big-character posters
• 1982 Constitution says that “citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, or assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration.”

The State

• Nomenklatura – party members are responsible for the appointment, transfer, and firing of personnel
• Organizational Parallelism – all government executive, legislative, and administrative agencies are matched at every level by a corresponding party organ.

Government

• The Chinese Government has always been subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
• Its role is to implement party policies
• Three branches – a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary
• People’s National Congress
• The National People’s Congress choose the President and Vice President of China
• There is only one party-sponsored candidate for each position
• Executive
• The President and Vice President
• The Premier
• State Council

National People’s Congress

• According to the constitution, the highest organization of state authority
• Generally considered to be a rubber stamp
• Gradually becoming a place for delegates to offer opinions, express dissatisfaction with government policy, and occasionally dissenting votes
• NPC Standing Committee
• The permanent body of NPC exercises all but the most formal powers of the NPC
• 8 Special Committees
• legislative affairs, nationalities, agriculture and rural, foreign affairs, etc.
• NPC plenary sessions
• Meet annually in Beijing
• For about 2 weeks
• Review and approve major new policy directions, laws, the budget, and major personnel changes
• The nearly 3,000 deputies are elected
• 5-year terms
• by provincial-level people’s congresses

PRC Head of State

• President
• Jiang Zemin
• 1993-2003
• also the then CCP Gen Secretary
• Hu Jintao
• 2003-2008
• also the current CCP General Secretary

Head of Government

• Premier: Wen Jiabao (2003-2008)
• State Council
• 29 ministies and commissions
• ministry of foreign affairs
• ministry of national defense
• development and reform commission
• people’s bank of china, etc.

Hu Jintao

• Chinese President, Party General Secretary, Central Military Commission Chariman
• Assumed power in 2002
• First leader to join the party after the revolution

Wen Jiabao

• Chinese Premier
• Since becoming China’s premier, Wen has focused on narrowing the widening gap between the country’s urban rich and the rural poor.

Judiciary

• Law is subject to the leaders
• No criminal code existed until 1978
• Supreme people’s Court
• 200 judges meet in smaller tribunals to decide cases
• People’s Procuratorate
• Responsible for prosecution and investigation
• Capital punishment may be meted out for 65 offenses including embezzlement and theft
• In 2001 China executed more criminals in three months than the rest of the world had in three years
• Local committees may sentence “hoolums” to terms in labor camps of up to four eyars
• No apparent opportunity for defense or appeal
• In 2005 estimates say some 300,000 being held in labor camps

Central Military Commission

• Commanders-in-chief of the People’s Liberation Army
• In both the central party and government structures
• Same composition
• Chair: Hu Jintao
• 11 memebrs

Key Institutions

• People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
• 2.3 million soliders
• led by the Central Military Commission

Provincial Level Governments

• 22 Provinces
• 5 Autonomous Regions
• Inner Mongolia
• Xinjiang Uygur
• Guangxi Zhuang
• Ningxia Hui
• TIbet
• 4 Municiplaities
• 2 Special Administrative Regions
• Hong Kong
• Macao

Local Government:

• Belief that unity and stability are only possible under strong central leadership
• Some political liberalization
• Secret ballot elections for county-level congresses
• Some local party secretaries
• Descending levels of government modeled on the central government
• 27 provinces
• 3,000 counties
• 45,000 townships
• Nearly 1 million villages

Guanxi

• Patron-client network
• Based on ideology
• The source of factions within the party
• Pervasive at the local level
• Combination of guanxi and the economic boom of the past twenty years has brought about rampant corruption within the Chinese economic and political system
• Bribes are common
• Corruption is widely regarded as a major problem

Local Party Sturcture

• 3.5 million party committees, party general branches, and party branches
• provinces, cities, counties, townships, and villages
• enterprises
• state-owned enterprises
• private enterprises