Transcript Slide 1


Party controls

Direct elections are held at the local
level
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Direct, secret-ballot elections at local
level.

CCP allows the existence of eight
"democratic" parties.

Membership

Important advisory role to the party
leaders.

No independent democratic parties
CCP
CHINESE GOVERNMENT
PARALLEL HIERARCHY
PLA
Three parallel hierarchies
 Principle of dual role
 China's policy making is governed more
directly by factions and personal
relationships (guanxi)
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Organized hierarchically by levels
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The party has a separate constitution from
the government's constitution of 1982, and
its central bodies are:
› National Party Congress
› Central Committee
› Politburo/Standing Committee
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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, but there is
only one party-sponsored candidate for each
position
Executive/Bureaucracy
 The President and Vice President
 The Premier
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Bureaucracy

Chinese for patron-client relationships
› Think nomenclatura in the CCP
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Helps to build contacts and power
› Can determine Politburo membership
among other things
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President and Premier
(Prime Minister)
› President is head of
state with little
constitutional power,
but is sometimes the
General Secretary of
CCP
› Prime Minister is head
of State Council, or
ministers, and is in
charge of
“departments” of
government
They are elected for 5-year terms by
National Peoples Congress, nominated
by CCP’s National Party Congress
 They also serve on Central Military
Commission, which oversees the PLA
 The CCP’s leader is the general secretary
and he is in charge of bureaucracy, or
Secretariat

Think of Russian Matrioshka dolls
 Top legislative body is National Peoples
Congress

› 3,000 members chosen by provincial peoples
congresses across the country
› They meet in Beijing once a year for a
couple of weeks to “legislate” for 1 billion+
people
The National Peoples Congress chooses
a Central Committee of 200 that meets
every 2 months to conduct business
 Inside this is the Central Committee’s
Standing Committee which functions
every day
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Parallel structure
The National Party Congress is main
representative body of CCP, not people
› Has 2,000 delegates
› Select 150-200 people chosen for Central
Committee
› It chooses a Politburo of 12 people to run party’s
day to day business
› Many of these people work in Secretariat so
Politburo chooses a Standing Committee of 6
headed by General Secretary (Thus merging
executive to legislative)

Standing Committee of Politburo
includes president and prime minister,
plus closest associates, and the party
legislative “branch” and party executive
is joined with government executive
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State Council
› Government Ministers and Prime Minister
carry out the decisions made by National
Peoples Congress (or Politburo)
› Chinese bureaucrats are paralled by party
members assigned to their ministries
› In spite of centralization, provincial and local
ministries have had to adapt national
policies to local needs

China has a 4-tiered "people's court" system
› Handle criminal cases and government working
on civil law codes
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“People's Procuratorate"
› Investigates suspected illegal activity
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Criminal justice system campaigns.
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Human Rights organizations criticize China
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a
gun.“ - Mao
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The People's Liberation Army
encompasses all of the country's
ground, air, and naval armed
services.
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Important influence on politics and
policy.
The second half of Mao's famous quote
above is less often quoted:
"Our principle is that the party
commands the gun, and the gun
must never be allowed to command
the party."
This propaganda poster represents life in the "Red Army"
- the military under Mao before the People's Republic of
China was formed in 1949.
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During the 1970s and 80s the
government didn’t have money to
modernize Army so fended for itself
› It ran hotels, construction companies,
factories that produced pirate copies of
everything, satellite dishes
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By 1990s government began controlling
the Army and its activities
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Economic reforms
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Demand for political power and civil
liberties?
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Will contact through trade mean that
China will become more like their trading
partners?
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Hong Kong
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Special
Economic Zones
(SEZs).
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China trades with
Taiwan, but the PRC
views Taiwan as part
of China and Taiwan
does not
› But they want to
benefit from its
trade
Democratic reforms can be seen in these
ways:
› Some input from the National People's
Congress is accepted by the Politburo
› More emphasis is placed on laws and legal
procedures
› Village elections are now semi-competitive,
with choices of candidates and some
freedom from the party's control
Hu was Chosen as General Secretary of the
Communist Party of China on November 15,
2002
 Became President of the People's Republic of
China on March 15, 2003, following his
election by the National People's Congress,
thus replacing his predecessor Jing Zemin.
 He is the first party chief to have joined the
Communist Party after the Revolution over 50
years ago
 Claims to have a photographic memory and
tends to have moderate views.
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