The CPC’s ruling model and its changing process

During the civil war against the Guomindang (Kuomintang Party), the CPC repeatedly announced that it would not rule the country as a one-party state (Chen, 2008). However, due to domestic and international constraints after the victory of the civil war, the CPC eventually established a highly centralized political system that disregards differences between party and state. After the establishment of the PRC in 1949, the CPC continued to follow the model of unified leadership that was used during the warring years in order to ensure the leading authority upon provinces and

complete monumental construction tasks (Chen, 2008). Consequently, the CPC achieved comprehensive leadership on national affairs. For example, the senior leader of the Party served as the leader of government, established the party committee and party group – which was directly led by the CPC Central Committee within the government system, and established the Party approval system to investigate political and legal cases (Chen, 2008). During the Cultural Revolution in 1966, leading political organs at all levels were severely damaged and the personality cult of Mao Zedong grew greatly. This led to the gradual evolution of China’s governance into a personal dictatorship party-state model (Chen, 2008).

After Deng Xiaoping came into power, the CPC started to strengthen and improve its leadership model. The CPC had to rely on legislation by the People’s Congress and other legislative means to achieve their leadership of state affairs. The CPC was no longer the direct leader of economic and social affairs, and so it turned to play the role of coordinator (Chen, 2008). The centralized unified leadership model on governance had changed into a political, ideological and organizational leadership. The party was no longer directly involved in governmental affairs but was still embedded through a variety of ways to maintain the government’s political leadership (Chen, 2008). Firstly, important development plans and decisions about the economy had to be approved by the Party Committee before implementation. Secondly, for the composition of government at all levels, the major leaders must be CPC members. This was more prominent especially at the province, district and county levels, where executive heads concurrently served as the local party’s deputy secretary. These leaders also exercised their executive powers with their identity as Party members. Lastly, the power to investigate and appoint administrative officials at all levels was held in the hands of the Party’s Organization Department, while the power to punish party members with corrupt behaviour was wielded by the Party’s Discipline Inspection Departments (Liu, 2011).

Simultaneously, the duties of the Party and government in economic and social affairs were gradually standardized. The local party’s first secretary no longer served as the major leader of the government, and party committees no longer sent

one-to-one correspondence on work instructions to the relevant departments of government (Liu, 2011). Policy decisions made by the government were self-published by the government rather than released by the Party Committee as a party document. The chief executives became the real core in the government of all levels and held the highest decision-making authority and leadership (Xia and Gu, 1999). More and more institutions and state-owned enterprises took the executive leading model rather than the party secretary leading model (Xia and Gu, 1999). Therefore, the boundary between Party and government became increasingly clear. As mentioned above, the current ruling model of the CPC could be summarized as selecting and recommending outstanding members to state organs in order to manage national, economic and social affairs on behalf of the Party. Meanwhile, the CPC sets up corresponding agencies like a government would. Each Party agency directly or indirectly leads, supervises or serves appropriate government agencies. Party organizations achieve their ruling power in the government through the Party group within the national legislation organ (NPC), the judiciary organ (courts, Procuratorates), democratic parties and social groups (Chen, 2000). Over decades of development, the CPC’s ruling model has experienced continuous improvement. The boundary between Party function and government function is basically clear and is realized in daily practice.

However, functions overlap and problems still exist between the Party and government, which reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of daily state operations. Firstly, the Party Committee still holds some authority similar to the one held by government at the same level. During the reform and opening-up process, leaders developed a habit of solving problems via Party organizations rather than through judicial means. Such a phenomenon has formed a kind of path dependency (Chen, 2000). For example, during the institutional reform in 1998, a big issue was how to manage state-owned assets. However, a relevant asset management department was not established within the State Council system. Instead a large Enterprise Work Committee was established within the Party system to manage the state assets and to coordinate the relevant powers of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Personnel and

the State Economic and Trade Commission (Chen, 2000). This example indicates that leaders have become accustomed to solving problems via Party organization rather than via administrative and judicial means. Secondly, although the constitution notes that government and the judiciary organ are under the leadership of the People’s Congress, due to the unique position of the CPC in China’s political system, the power of the People’s Congress cannot be fully used. This is because the administrative organs are actually under the leadership of Party organization (Liu, 2011). Thirdly, because of the embarrassing situation of the People’s Congress, some of the Party’s principles, policies or official documents often have priority over national laws. The increasing judicial corruption is partly because some Party leaders interfere with the results of judicial cases to meet their own interests. Lastly, there is internal friction between government leaders and Party leaders within the same department or institution. Research done by the Central Party School showed that in 50–80% of local governments, the Party secretary would contradict the executive head (Chen, 2000). Such disunity is the result of unclear power distribution and overlapping organization between the Party and government. The Party Committee does have decision-making power on significant events according to the constitution and law, however, it is difficult to determine whether an event is significant or not. Such situations could bring about administrative power confusion and illegal intervention on policymaking and implementation.

Section 2.2: The central-local relationship in China