The
Communist Party of China (CPC),
also known as the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP), is the founding and the ruling political party of the People's
Republic of China
(PRC) and the world's largest political party. While not a
governing body recognized by
the PRC's
constitution, the Party's position as the supreme political
authority and power in the PRC is realized through its control of
all state apparatuses and of the legislative process. The
Communist Party of China was founded in May
1920 in Shanghai, and came to rule all of
mainland China after defeating its rival the
Kuomintang (KMT) in the
Chinese Civil War. The party's 70 million
members constitute 5.5% of the total population of
mainland China.
Organization
The party's organizational structure was destroyed during the
Cultural Revolution and rebuilt
afterwards by
Deng Xiaoping, who
subsequently initiated "
Socialism with Chinese
characteristics" and brought all state apparatuses back under
the control of the CPC.
Theoretically, the party's highest body is the
National
Congress of the Communist Party of China, which meets at least
once every five years. The primary organization of power in the
Communist Party which is detailed in the
party
constitution include:
Other central organizations include:
In addition, there are numerous commissions and leading groups, the
most important of which are:
-
Central Political and Legislative Affairs Committee
- Work Committee for Organs under the Central Committee
- Work Committee for Central Government Organs
- Central Financial and Economic Leading Group
- Central Leading Group for Rural Work
- Central Leading Group for Party Building
- Central Foreign Affairs Leading Group
- Central Taiwan Affairs Leading Group
- Commission for Protection of Party Secrets
- Leading Group for State Security
- Party History Research Centre
- Party Research Center
-
Central Party School
Every five years, the Communist Party of China holds a National
Congress. The latest happened on October 15, 2007. Formally, the
Congress serves two functions: to approve changes to the Party
constitution regarding policy and to elect a
Central
Committee, about 300 strong. The Central Committee in turn
elects the
Politburo. In
practice, positions within the Central Committee and Politburo are
determined before a Party Congress, and the main purpose of the
Congress is to announce the party policies and vision for the
direction of China in the following few years.
The party's central focus of power is the Politburo Standing
Committee. The process for selecting Standing Committee members, as
well as Politburo members, occurs behind the scenes in a process
parallel to the National Congress. The new power structure is
announced obliquely through the positioning of portraits in the
People's Daily, the official
newspaper of the Party. The number of Standing Committee members
varies and has tended to increase over time. The Committee was
expanded to nine at the 16th Party National Congress in 2002.
There are two other key organs of political power in the People's
Republic of China: the formal government and the
People's Liberation Army.
There are, in addition to decision-making roles, advisory
committees, including the
People's Political
Consultative Conference. During the 1980s and 1990s there was a
Central Advisory
Commission established by
Deng
Xiaoping which consisted of senior retired leaders, but with
their passing this has been abolished since 1990.
Internal or external groupings

The flag of the Communist Party of
China
Political scientists have identified two groupings within the
Communist Partyleading to a structure which has been called "one
party, two
factions". The first is
the "elitist coalition" or
Shanghai
clique which contains mainly officials who have risen from
the more prosperous provinces. The second is the "populist
coalition" or "Youth League faction" which consists mainly of
officials who have risen from the rural interior, through the
Communist Youth League. The
interaction between these two factions is largely complementary
with each faction possessing a particular expertise and both
committed to the continued rule of the Communist Party and not
allowing intra-party factional politics threaten party unity. It
has been noted that party and government positions have been
assigned to create a very careful balance between these two
groupings.
Within his "one party, two factions" model, Li Chen has noted that
one should avoid labeling these two groupings with simplistic
ideological labels, and that these two groupings do not act in a
zero-sum, winner take all fashion. Neither group has the ability or
will to dominate the other completely.
Membership
The party was small at first, but grew intermittently through the
1920s. Twelve voting delegates were seated at the 1st
National Party Congress in 1921, as
well as at the 2nd (in 1922), when they represented 195 party
members. By 1923, the 420 members were represented by 30 delegates.
The 1925 4th Congress had 20 delegates representing 994 members;
then real growth kicked in. The 5th Congress (held in April-May
1927 as the
KMT was slaughtering communists)
comprised 80 voting delegates representing 57,968 members.
It was at October 3, 1928 6th Congress that the now-familiar ‘full’
and ‘alternate’ structure originated, with 84 and 34 delegates,
respectively. Membership was estimated at 40,000. In 1945, the 7th
Congress had 547 full and 208 alternate delegates representing 1.21
million members, a ratio of one representative per 1,600 members as
compared to 1:725 in 1927.
After the Party defeated the Nationalists, participation at
National Party Congresses became much less representative. Each of
the 1026 full and 107 alternate members represented 9,470 party
members (10.73 million in total) at the 1956 8th Congress.
Subsequent congresses held the number of participants down despite
membership growing to more than 60 million by 2000.
History
Criticism and support
Opinions
about the Communist Party of China often create unexpected
political alliances and divisions, e.g: divisions among conservatives in the
United
States
. Many of the unexpected opinions about the
CPC result from its rare combination of attributes as a party
formally based on
Marxism which has
eventually overseen a
market economy,
yet maintains an authoritarian political system.
Critics
- Trotskyists argue that the party was
doomed to its present character, that of petty-bourgeois
nationalism in the 1920s, because of the near-annihilation of the
workers' movement in the KMT betrayal of 1927, which was made
possible by Stalin's order that the
Communists join with the KMT in a centrist coalition, effectively
disarming it, which opportunity the KMT swiftly exploited to defeat
the communist revolution. This slaughter forced the tiny surviving
Party to switch from a workers' union- to a peasant,
guerrilla-based organization, and to seek the aid of the most
heterodox sources: from "patriotic capitalists" to the dreaded KMT
itself, with which it openly sought to participate in a coalition
government, even after the Japanese general surrender in 1945.
Chinese Trotskyists from Chen Duxiu
onward have called for a political
revolution against what they see as an opportunist, capitalist
leadership of the CPC.
- Supporters of the International Tibet
Independence Movement, Falun Gong,
the Republic of
China
, Taiwan
independence, East Turkestan Independence Movement, neoconservatives in the
United
States
and Japan
,
international human rights groups, proponents of civil liberties
and freedom of expression, advocates of democracy, anarchists, along with many democratic and anti-authoritarian left-wing forces in those same countries,
are among the groups which have opposed the PRC government because
it is said to be a repressive single-party state regime.
- Some of the opponents of the Party within the Chinese democracy movement have
tended not to argue that a strong Chinese state is inherently bad,
but rather that the Communist leadership is corrupt. The Chinese New Left, meanwhile, is a current
within China that seeks to "revert China to the socialist road" – i.e., to return China to the
socialist system that existed before Deng Xiaoping's reforms.
Self-criticism
Leaders of the Communist Party of China are aware that there are
serious problems with corruption and with maintaining the trust of
the Chinese people. However, attempts made in closed-door sessions
at Fourth Plenary Session of the 17th Communist Party of China
Central Committee in September 2009 to grapple with these problems
produced inconclusive results although a directive which requires
disclosure of investments and property holdings by party and
governmental officials was passed.
Supporters
- Another school of thought argues that the worst of the abuses
took place decades ago, and that the current leaders were not only
unconnected with them, but were actually victims of that era. They
have also argued that, while the modern Communist Party may be
flawed, it is comparatively better than previous regimes, with
respect to improving the general standard of living, than any other
government that has governed China in the past century and can be
seen in a more favorable light compared with most governments of
the developing nations. As a
result, the CPC has recently taken sweeping measures to regain
support from the countryside, with limited success.
- In addition, some scholars contend that China has never
operated under a decentralized democratic regime in its several
thousand years of history, and therefore it can be argued that the
present structure, albeit not up to western moral standards, is the
best possible option when compared to its alternatives.
A sudden
transition to democracy, they contend,
would result in the economic and political upheaval that occurred
in the Soviet
Union
in the 1990s, and that by focusing on economic
growth, China is setting the stage for a more gradual but
sustainable transition to a more liberal system.
This group
sees Mainland China as being similar to Spain
in the
1960s, and South
Korea
and Taiwan
during the
1970s. This school of thought also brings together some
unlikely political allies. Not only do most intellectuals within
the Chinese government follow this school of thinking, but it is
also the common belief held amongst pro-free
trade liberals in the West.
- Many observers from both within and outside of China have
argued that the CCP has taken gradual steps towards democracy and
transparency, hence arguing that it is best to give it time and
room to evolve into a better government rather than forcing an
abrupt change. However, other observers (like Minxin Pei) question whether these steps are
genuine efforts towards democratic reform or disingenuous measures
by the CCP to retain power.
Current leadership
The Members of the
Politburo
Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China are:
- Hu Jintao: President of the
People's Republic of China, General Secretary of the CPC,
Chairman of the Central
Military Commission.
- Wu Bangguo: Chairman of the Standing
Committee of the National People's Congress
- Wen Jiabao: Premier of the
State
Council of the People's Republic of China
- Jia Qinglin: Chairman of the
People's
Political Consultative Conference
- Xi Jinping: Vice President
of the People's Republic of China, top-ranked member of
CPC
Secretariat
- Li Keqiang: Executive Vice
Premier
- Li Changchun: "Propaganda
Chief"
- He Guoqiang: Head of
Central Commission for Discipline Inspection
- Zhou Yongkang: Head of
Political and Legislative Affairs Committee
Members of the Politburo of the CPC Central committee:
Wang Lequan,
Wang Zhaoguo,
Hui
Liangyu,
Liu Qi,
Liu Yunshan,
Li
Changchun,
Wu Yi,
Wu
Bangguo,
Wu Guanzheng,
Zhang Lichang,
Zhang
Dejiang,
Luo Gan,
Zhou Yongkang,
Hu
Jintao,
Yu Zhengsheng,
He Guoqiang,
Jia
Qinglin,
Guo Boxiong,
Cao Gangchuan,
Zeng
Qinghong,
Zeng Peiyan,
Wen Jiabao.
Alternate member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee:
Wang Gang
Members of Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee: Zeng Qinghong,
Liu Yunshan,
Zhou Yongkang, He Guoqiang,
Wang Gang,
Xu
Caihou,
He Yong.
Leaders
Between 1921 and 1943 the Communist Party of China was headed by
the
General
Secretary:
- Chen Duxiu, General Secretary
1921–1922 and 1925–1927
- Qu Qiubai, General Secretary
1927–1928
- Xiang Zhongfa, General Secretary
1928–1931
- Li Lisan, acting General Secretary
1929–1930
- Wang Ming, acting General Secretary
1931
- Bo Gu, a.k.a. Qin Bangxian, acting General
Secretary 1932–1935
- Zhang Wentian a.k.a. Luo Fu,
acting General Secretary 1935–1943
In 1943 the position of
Chairman of the
Communist Party of China was created.
In 1982, the post of Chairman was abolished, and the General
Secretary, at this time held by the same man as the post of
Chairman, once again became the supreme office of the Party.
See also
References
External links