Topic 6: The logic of the party-state

2019/20

https://www.uschina.org/sites/default/files/LeadershipReport.pdf

“Resolution on certain questions in the history of our party since

the founding of the PRC” (27 June 1981)

The Party has decided to:

• end the virtually lifelong tenure of leading cadres;
• change the over-concentration of power;
• reduce the average age of leading cadres; and
• raise their level of education and professional
competence

The 1982 amendment to the PRC constitution put in

place term limits for the PRC President and Vice
President

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 March 2018 amendment to the PRC Constitution:
Abolition of presidential term limits

• The National People’s Congress voted

to abolish term limits for the PRC
President and Vice President.
• Before the amendment, the term limits
were two consecutive five-year terms.

Wang Qishan and Xi Jinping

Nomenklatura system of personnel management

All positions of real importance fall under the nomenklatura system
consisting of:
1. Lists of leading positions over which the Party exercises the power
of appointment and dismissal
2. Lists of reserve candidates for those positions
3. Rules governing the actual processes of appointments and
dismissals
• Not only CCP positions, but also positions in the government, judicial
system, universities, SOEs, religious organizations, hospitals, etc.
Kenneth Lieberthal (2004) Governing China, p. 234.

National People’s Congress (NPC) (1)

• Highest organ of state power
• Exercises legislative power of the state
• Convenes once a year for around two weeks in March, in conjunction with
the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC)
• Serves a five year-term; the current 13th NPC has 2980 delegates elected
from all territorial administrative units directly under the central
government, and by the armed forces.
• Elects its standing committee (NPCSC). The current 13th NPCSC has 175
delegates

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National People’s Congress (NPC) (2)
1. To make laws
2. To amend the PRC Constitution
3. To elect the PRC President and Vice President
4. To approve the State Council’s plan for national economic and social
development
5. To approve the State Council’s budget
6. To decide on questions of war and peace

http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Special_13_1/ind
ex.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_National_People%27s_Congress

National People’s Congress (NPC) (3)

• Many see it as a rubber stamp
• Occasional assertiveness in
deliberation: veto votes, property law
debates, etc. (see Saich 2015 core
reading)
• Compared to NPC, provincial PCs tend
to be more assertive in deliberation
and tend to be returned by more
rigorous voting procedures (see Guo
2017 core reading) http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Special_13_1/index.htm

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 National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC)

• United front policy: to provide a platform of political participation

for mainly non-CCP members, including leaders of the “eight
democratic parties,” under the leadership of the CCP
• Meets once a year, the current 13th CPPCC National Committee has
2158 members and 24 Vice Chairpersons
• At the 13th CPPCC National Committee concluded in March 2018,
delegates submitted 5400 proposals addressing social and
economic issues.

See https://news.cgtn.com/news/7941544f78454464776c6d636a4e6e62684a4856/share_p.html

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“Eight democratic parties”

• The Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang
• The China Democratic League
• The China National Democratic Construction Association
• The China Association for Promoting Democracy
• The Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party
• The China Zhi Gong Party
• The Jiusan Society
• The Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/06/c_137020523.htm

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The State Council

• The State Council is the Central People’s Government
(CPG) of the PRC. The head of the State Council is the
Premier.
• The NPC elects the Premier upon nomination by the Premier Li Keqiang
PRC President.
• “The State Council is responsible and reports on its
work to the NPC or, when the NPC is not in session, to
its Standing Committee” (Art 92 of PRC Constitution)

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 Reorganization of the State Council
• The 8th round of State Council reorganization since the beginning of the
post-Mao reforms in 1978 was announced in March 2018.
• Goal: ““to make the government better-structured, more efficient, and
service-oriented”
• Reorganization through merging, restructuring, creating and dissolving
• Reduce 8 ministerial-level organizations and 7 vice-ministerial level
organizations
• Add 7 new ministries and 4 new administrations (including an
international development cooperation agency)
https://npcobserver.com/2018/03/14/a-guide-to-2018-state-council-institutional-reforms/; https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/chinas-massive-
government-overhaul-what-you-need-to-know/; http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201803/13/WS5aa7224ca3106e7dcc1412f6.htm; l
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/13/c_137036361.htm

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Party core groups and Party committees in

government ministries and commissions
• Each government ministry and commission has:
1. a “party core group”: a few elitist CCP members belonging to
the ministry/commission
2. a “party committee”: all CCP members belonging to the
ministry/commission
• Party core groups and party committees provide supervision over
the government ministries and commissions

Kenneth Lieberthal (2004) Governing China, pp. 239-40.

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Party committees in local government units

• All levels of local

government units have a
party committee
• Party committees provide
supervision over the
government units at the
same level

Image credit: Hong Sun, 2016, Study on the correlation between the hierarchical urban system and high-speed railway network planning in China,
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Administrative-territorial-levels-of-government-in-China-Source-Elaborated-by-the_fig1_304459716

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 Xitong and tiao/kuai relationships

“In their [Chinese officials’]

vocabulary, the key concepts
concerning the organization of
power are the xitong (led by
leadership small groups) and the
tensions of tiao/kuai relationships.” Kenneth Lieberthal (2004)
Governing China, p. 215

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Groupings (xitong)
• xitong: groupings of functional bureaucracies
• Six major xitongs: party affairs, organization
and personnel, propaganda and education,
political and legal affairs, finance and
economics, and the military
• Each xitong is led by one or a few “leadership
small group(s)” headed by high-ranking Party
Kenneth Lieberthal (2004)
members (at the levels of the Politburo and
Governing China, pp. 215-7.
its Standing Committee)

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Kenneth Lieberthal (2004), Governing China, p. 217.

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 Leading Small Groups (LSGs) and commissions
established and chaired by Xi
1. Central LSG for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms
2. National Security Commission
3. Central LSG for Internet Security and Informatization
4. Central Foreign Affairs Commission (replaces the former Central LSG
on Foreign Affairs)

See https://www.merics.org/en/china-monitor/content/3516; https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/in-xis-china-the-center-

takes-control-of-foreign-affairs/; https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/clm44am.pdf

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Lines/vertical level (tiao) and pieces/horizontal

level (kuai) (1)
• Vertical coordination from central level
ministry to local level departments
(lines: vertical bureaucracies)

• Horizontal coordination within a given

geographic area by local governments
Kenneth Lieberthal (2004), Governing
and local Party Committees (kuai: China, pp. 186-188
horizontal coordinating bodies)

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Lines/vertical level (tiao) and pieces/horizontal

level (kuai) (2)
• E.g. Consider a hypothetical Zhongshan County Energy Department
(ZCED) in Guangdong Province
• Vertical coordination: ZCED is subordinate to both the Zhongshan
county government and the energy bureau of the Guangdong
provincial government (i.e. functional administrative superiors)
• Horizontal coordination: ZCED must answer to both the Zhongshan
county CCP Committee and the Guangdong provincial government
(i.e. local government superiors)
• Further complications: If the solution to a problem requires action by
more than one department, it will likely result in lines crisscrossing
authority

Kenneth Lieberthal (2004), Governing China, pp. 186-188

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 Lines/vertical level (tiao) and
pieces/horizontal level (kuai) (3)
• Fragmented authoritarianism:
• Exceedingly voluminous, complex and cumbersome
reporting lines in the bureaucracy
• Officials of any given office have a number of bosses Kenneth Lieberthal (2004),
(often with conflicting interests) in different places Governing China, pp. 186-188

• Official units (and officials) of the same bureaucratic

rank cannot issue binding orders to each order

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Andrew Mertha: Changes to fragmented authoritarianism

• Becoming even more fragmented…..Increasing

pluralized policy process involving hitherto
peripheral officials, non-government organizations
and the media (Mertha 2009, “Fragmented authoritarianism 2.0,”
The China Quarterly 200, pp. 995-1012 )

• Transition from kuai to tiao……..“Centralized

management” for key bureaucracies: tiao trumps
kuai, i.e. officials are directly controlled by their
functional administrative superiors (tiao) and only
have a consultative relationship with their local
government superiors (kuai) (Mertha 2005, “China’s soft
centralization,” The China Quarterly 184, pp. 791-810)

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Environmental management under Xi:

Transition from kuai (horizontal level) to tiao (vertical level) (1)

• Reform first piloted in 12 provinces in 2016; nationwide implementation

by 2020
• Pre-reform: A municipal-level Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB)
receives instructions from its upper-level EPB, i.e., the provincial-level
EPB (tiao/vertical level), but final decisions for the municipal-level EPB
were made by the municipal government (kuai/horizontal level)
• Because municipal government (kuai) tends to prioritize economic over
environmental priorities, this leads to implementation difficulties for
environmental policies.
Genia Kostka & Chunman Zhang (2018) Tightening the grip: environmental governance under Xi Jinping, Environmental
Politics, 27:5, 769-781

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 Environmental management under Xi:
Transition from kuai (horizontal level) to tiao (vertical level) (2)

• The reform: The powers of environmental monitoring and

inspection are transferred from municipal governments (kuai)
to provincial-level EPB (tiao)
• The power to nominate the head of municipal-level EPB is
transferred from municipal governments (kuai) to provincial-
level EPB (tiao)
• The reform served to increase the independence of municipal-
level EPB from the municipal-level government (kuai)
Genia Kostka & Chunman Zhang (2018) Tightening the grip: environmental governance under Xi Jinping, Environmental
Politics, 27:5, 769-781

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Environmental management under Xi:

Transition from kuai (horizontal level) to tiao (vertical level) (3)

• Problem: isolation of municipal-level EPB officials within the

municipal level of government
• Prior to the reform, municipal-level EPB officials could be
promoted both vertically (to provincial-level EPB) and
horizontally (within the municipal government
administration).
• But after the reform, the career mobility of municipal-level
EPB officials is practically restricted to the vertical line of
personnel movement
Genia Kostka & Chunman Zhang (2018) Tightening the grip: environmental governance under Xi Jinping, Environmental
Politics, 27:5, 769-781

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