Politics

The politics of the People's Republic of China (PRC) takes place in a framework of a single-party socialist republic. The leadership of the Communist Party is enshrined in the PRC Constitution. State power within the PRC is exercised through the Communist Party of China, the Central People's Government and their provincial and local counterparts. Under the dual leadership system, each local bureau or office is under the theoretically co-equal authority of the local leader and the leader of the corresponding office, bureau or ministry at the next higher level. The ideology of the people's democratic dictatorship according to which democracy is for the people who agree with the Communist Party while dictatorship is to be exercised over the opponents of the Communist Party is still the underlying meaning of democracy in Party statements. Increased public input to policymaking is increasingly encouraged as long as Party authority is not challenged.

Communist Party

The more than 63 million-member Communist Party of China (CPC) continues to dominate government. In periods of relative liberalisation, the influence of people and organisations outside the formal party structure has tended to increase, particularly in the economic realm. Under the command economy system, every state owned enterprise was required to have a party committee. The introduction of the market economy means that economic institutions now exist in which the party has limited or no power.

Nevertheless, in all governmental institutions in the PRC, the party committees at all levels maintain an important role. Central party control is tightest in central government offices and in urban economic, industrial, and cultural settings; it is considerably looser over government and party organisations in rural areas, where the majority of China's people live. Their most important responsibility comes in the selection and promotion of personnel. They also see that party and state policy guidance is followed and that non-party members do not create autonomous organisations that could challenge party rule. Particularly important are the leading small groups which coordinate activities of different agencies. Although there is a convention that government committees contain at least one non-party member, a party membership is a definite aid in promotion and in being in crucial policy setting meetings.

Theoretically, the party's highest body is the Party Congress, which is supposed to meet at least once every 5 years. Meetings became irregular during the Cultural Revolution but have been periodic since then. The party elects the Central Committee and the primary organs of power are formally parts of the central committee.

The primary organs of power in the Communist Party include:
The Politburo Standing Committee, which currently consists of 9 members;
The Politburo, consisting of 22 full members (including the members of the Politburo Standing Committee);
The Secretariat, the principal administrative mechanism of the CPC, headed by the General Secretary;
The Central Military Commission;
The Discipline Inspection Commission, which is charged with rooting out corruption and malfeasance among party cadres.

State Structure

The primary organs of state power are the National People's Congress (NPC), the President and the State Council. Members of the State Council include the Premier, a variable number of vice premiers (now four), five state councillors (protocol equal of vice premiers but with narrower portfolios), and 29 ministers and heads of State Council commissions.

During the 1980s, there was an attempt made to separate party and state functions, with the party deciding general policy and the state carrying it out. The attempt was abandoned in the 1990s with the result that the political leadership within the state are also the leaders of the party, thereby creating a single centralised locus of power.

At the same time, there has been a convention that party and state offices be separated at levels other than the central government, and it is unheard of for a sub-national executive to also be party secretary. Conflict has been often known to develop between the chief executive and the party secretary, and this conflict is widely seen as intentional to prevent either from becoming too dominant. Some special cases are the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau where the Communist Party does not function at all as part of the governmental system, and the autonomous regions where, following Soviet practice, the chief executive is typically a member of the local ethnic group while the party general secretary is non-local and usually Han Chinese.

Under the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China. It meets annually for about 2 weeks to review and approve major new policy directions, laws, the budget and major personnel changes. Most national legislation in China is adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. Most initiatives are presented to the NPCSC for consideration by the State Council after previous endorsement by the Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee. Although the NPC generally approves State Council policy and personnel recommendations, the NPC and its standing committee has increasingly asserted its role as the national legislature and has been able to force revisions in some laws. For example, the State Council and the Party have been unable to secure passage of a fuel tax to finance the construction of freeways.

Foreign Relations

The PRC maintains diplomatic relations with most countries in the world. In 1971, the PRC replaced the Republic of China as the sole representative of 'China' in the United Nations and as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. China was represented by the Republic of China at the time of the UN's founding in 1945. The PRC was also a former member and leader of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Under the One-China policy, the PRC has made it a pre-condition to establishing diplomatic relations that the other country acknowledges its claim to Taiwan and sever any official ties with the Republic of China (ROC) government. The government actively opposes foreign travels by former and present Taiwanese officials, such as Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian, and other people it sees as politically dangerous, such as the current Dalai Lama of Tibet.

China has been playing a leading role in calling for free trade areas and security pacts amongst its Asia-Pacific neighbours. In 2004, China proposed an entirely new East Asia Summit (EAS) framework as a forum for regional security issues that pointedly excluded the United States. The EAS, which includes ASEAN Plus Three, India, Australia and New Zealand, held its inaugural summit in 2005. China is also a founder and member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), alongside Russia and the Central Asian republics.

Much of the current foreign policy is based on the concept of China's peaceful rise. Nonetheless, crises in relations with foreign countries have occurred at various times in its recent history, particularly with the United States, such as the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo conflict in May 1999 and the US-China spy plane incident in April 2001. China's foreign relations with many Western nations suffered for a time following the Tiananmen Square Incident in 1989.

A much troubled foreign relationship is that between China and Japan, which has been strained at times by Japan's refusal to acknowledge its war-time past to the satisfaction of the PRC, such as revisionistic comments made by prominent Japanese officials, and insufficient details given to the Nanjing Massacre and other atrocities committed during World War II in Japanese history textbooks as well as the reluctance of the Chinese media and officials to acknowledge positive actions on the Japanese side. Another point of conflict between the two countries is the frequent visits by Japanese government officials to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours not only Japanese World War II dead but also many convicted World War II war criminals, including 14 Class A convictions.

Military

The PRC, despite possession of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, is widely seen by military researchers both within and outside of China as having only limited power projection capability; this is, among other things, due to the limited effectiveness of its navy. It is considered a major regional power and possibly an emerging superpower.

Much progress has been made in the last decade and the PRC continues to make efforts to modernise its military. It has purchased state-of-the-art fighter jets from Russia, such as the Su-30s, and has also produced its own modern fighters, specifically the Chinese J-10s and the J-11s. It has also acquired and improved upon the Russian S-300 Surface-to-Air missile systems, which are considered to be among the best aircraft-intercepting systems in the world. The PRC's armoured and rapid-reaction forces have been updated with enhanced electronics and targeting capabilities. In recent years, much attention has been focused on building a navy with blue-water capability.

Human Rights

The Constitution of the People's Republic of China states that the 'fundamental rights' of citizens include freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, universal suffrage, and property rights. However, censorship of political speech and information is openly and routinely used to protect what the government considers national security interests. In particular, press control is notoriously tight: Reporters Without Borders considers the PRC one of the least free countries in the world for the press.

The government has a policy of limiting some protests and organisations that it considers a threat to social stability and national unity, as was the case with the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The Communist Party has had mixed success at controlling information: a very strong media control system faces very strong market forces, an increasingly educated citizenry and cultural change that are making China more open. In some cases, especially on environmental issues, China's leaders see expressions of public dissatisfaction as a catalyst for positive change.

At times, the PRC is faced with criticism from foreign governments and NGOs concerning allegations of gross human rights violations. These criticisms allege that there existed a widespread practice of lengthy detentions without trial, forced confessions, torture, mistreatment of prisoners, as well as allegations of restrictions on freedoms of speech, assembly, association, religion, the press, and workers' rights. Furthermore, China leads the world in capital punishment, accounting for roughly 90% of total death-penalty executions in 2004. These issues remain one of the driving forces behind independence movements in Tibet and Xinjiang. The PRC government responds to these criticisms by arguing that the notion of human rights should factor in standards-of-living. It views the rise in China's standard-of-living as an indicator of improvement in the human rights issue.

In Reporters Without Borders' Annual World Press Freedom Index of 2005, the PRC ranked 159 out of 167 places. PRC journalist He Qinglian in her 2004 book Media Control in China documents government controls on the Internet and other media in China.