scholarly journals The Chinese Communist Party's Nervous System: Affective Governance from Mao to Xi

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Christian Sorace
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Committee Member ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Standing Committee ◽  
Reform Era ◽  
Communist Party Of China ◽  
Sichuan Earthquake ◽  
Mao Era

Abstract In its one hundred years of existence, the Communist Party of China has experimented with how to connect its narratives of legitimacy to people's affects. In this essay, I trace the conceptualization of gratitude, from its repudiation in the Mao era as a vestige of feudalism and imperialism to its return in the reform era as a re-verticalization of Party sovereignty. The paper addresses four examples of gratitude work: Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Yang's short-lived critique of gratitude in the name of a different conception of popular sovereignty; the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake as a day of gratitude; the detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang who are taught to be grateful to the Communist Party in a campaign of religious de-radicalization; and the refusal of gratitude in quarantined Wuhan during the COVID-19 pandemic. In these cases, the Communist Party's sovereignty stands at the threshold between bio- and necro-politics, promising life and salvation in the midst of death and destruction.

scholarly journals The 19th Party Congress: Personnel Changes and Policy Guidelines

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-97
Author(s):  
KJELD ERIK BRØDSGAARD ◽  
NIS HØYRUP CHRISTENSEN
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
Deng Xiaoping ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Standing Committee ◽  
Communist Party Of China ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
The Future ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Party Congress

The 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in BeijingOctober 18-24 2017. Leading up to the congress there was intense speculation concerning the new line-up of the most important leadership bodies of the CPC: the Politburo and the Politburo Standing Committee. Would the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) continue to consist of seven members, or would it be expanded to nine members, as was the case during Jiang Zemin's era, or would it instead be reduced to five members, as was the case during the late 1980s? Would unwritten rules such as '68 down, 67 up' be observed? Or would veteran leaders such as Wang Qishan (69) continue to serve on the committee? Would Xi Jinping pack the Politburo and the PSC with his own close allies, or would he try to achieve a factional balance observing the interests of former leaders such as Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao? There was also much speculation concerning Xi Jinping's status. Would the 'Chairman of Everything' have hisname and thought written into the CPC Constitution alongside that of MaoZedong and Deng Xiaoping and ahead of his two immediate predecessors?Xi Jinping's report to the Party congress was also awaited with muchinterest. Such a report is usually a long document setting out the Party'spriorities and policy objectives for the next five-year period. Would XiJinping's report signal new policy initiatives, and would it outline strategicguidelines reaching beyond 2022? This article examines these questionsand assesses the future impact of the Party congress on Chinese politics.

Revitalizing the State's Urban “Nerve Tips”

2000 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 806-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Read
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Base Level ◽  
International Attention ◽  
Party State ◽  
Mao Era

While observers of China have always paid attention to the “base-level” administrative institutions and mass organizations created by the Communist party-state, urban Residents' Committees (RCs; jumin weiyuanhui) have received relatively little study in recent years. Though the RCs remain pervasive in most areas of most cities and engage the energies of millions of activists and volunteers, this neglect is understandable. During the Mao era, Western writing on neighbourhood organizations emphasized their role in helping to police and administer the harsh political order that gripped the cities. In the 1980s and 1990s, the authorities have yielded much greater space to a private sphere in which law-abiding individuals are relatively free from intrusion. Instruments of state penetration such as the RCs have seemed less worthy of analysis. They also lack the requisite autonomy to qualify as part of an emergent civil society, and moreover their limited progress in serving as a focus for democratic participation earns them much less international attention than their rural equivalents, the Villagers' Committees. They may even seem worthy of derision rather than study; merely mentioning the term juweihui often brings an amused smile to people's faces, as it connotes ageing, officious busy bodies poking into people's personal matters.

China’s Efforts to Shape and Improve Its International Discursive Power: Diplomatic Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 334-347
Author(s):  
Jisheng Sun
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Communist Party Of China ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Language Style ◽  
The Future ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Strategic Layout ◽  
Discursive Power

Summary Discursive power is the reflection of a country’s national strength and international influence. The increase of economic power does not necessarily mean the increase of discursive power. The improvement of discursive power has to be strategically designed and multidimensionally improved. Due to China’s historical experiences regarding discursive power, China is weak in many fields. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China began to pay more attention to improve its international discursive power such as expanding its discursive presence and strengthening effectiveness of its voice, changing language style, enhancing institutional power and innovating diplomatic practice. In the future, more substantive efforts will be needed such as strengthening the overall strategic layout, enhancing institutional discursive power in various fields, improving the discursive system and promoting integration of China’s major diplomatic ideas and discourse with global ones.

The Sixteenth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party: Hu Gets What?

Asian Survey ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Cheng ◽  
Lynn White
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Turnover Rates ◽  
Standing Committee ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Trends Over Time ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Elite Selection ◽  
Over Time

This essay offers data about China's Central Committee, Politburo, and Standing Committee, e.g., turnover rates, generations, birthplaces, educations, occupations, ethnicities, genders, experiences, and factions. Past statistics demonstrate trends over time. Norms of elite selection can be induced from such data, which allow a broad-based analysis of changes in China's technocracy. New findings include evidence of cooperation among factions and swift promotions of province administrators.

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