scholarly journals Of Constitutions, Campaigns and Commissions: A Century of Democratic Centralism under the CCP

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Patricia M. Thornton
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Adaptive Governance ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Contemporary China ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Democratic Centralism ◽  
Organizational Principle ◽  
History Of ◽  
Party Congress

Abstract Democratic centralism, a hallmark of Leninist party organizations, has played a formative role in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet despite being hailed as an “inviolable” and “unchanging” Party principle, understandings of democratic centralism have shifted dramatically over the century of its existence. This study traces the long arc of the concept's evolution across successive Party Constitutions, focusing on three critical historical junctures: the Sixth Party Congress, which formally adopted democratic centralism into its Constitution as an organizational principle; the Seventh Party Congress, which adopted rectification as the Party's practice of democratic centralism; and the 19th Party Congress, which set a new milestone in codifying the system as a disciplinary tool. I argue that while democratic centralism exemplifies the CCP's institutional plasticity and adaptive governance and is critical to understanding Party-driven constitutionalism in contemporary China, it also highlights an irresolvable paradox inherent in Party rule. Adaptability does not necessarily impart resilience. I conclude that the CCP's normatively unconstrained extra-constitutional leadership under Xi Jinping highlights the essentially and increasingly irrationalist aspects of its illiberal governance project.

scholarly journals Deepening Not Departure: Xi Jinping's Governance of China's State-owned Economy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Wendy Leutert ◽  
Sarah Eaton
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Management System ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Centralized Control ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
And Control ◽  
Radical Shift

Abstract To what extent has governance of China's state-owned economy changed under Xi Jinping? Against the background of momentous shifts in the political arena since 2012, some observe a decisive departure in Xi's approach to managing state-owned enterprises (SOEs): towards tight centralized control by the Chinese Communist Party and away from gradual marketization. Analysing the main aims and methods of SOE governance over the last two decades, we find that SOE policy under Xi exhibits a deepening of pre-existing trends rather than a departure. First, the essential vision of SOE functions articulated under Xi is strikingly consistent with that of his predecessors. Second, his administration's approach to governing SOEs is not novel; it relies on established mechanisms of bureaucratic design, the cadre management system, Party organizations and campaigns. While Xi has amplified Party-centred tools of command and control, this appears to be an incremental rather than a radical shift in approach.

Party Congress will set China's course to 2022

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sixth Generation ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Party Congress

Subject China's 19th Communist Party Congress. Significance Preparations are underway for the 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which is likely to be scheduled for October or November. Much political groundwork has been laid in support of President Xi Jinping and for progress on his vision for China. The Congress will set a direction towards the 100th anniversary in 2021 of the founding of the Party and the handover of power to a sixth generation of leaders shortly after. Impacts Beijing will probably be cautious in its foreign policy during the months running up to the Congress. Consolidating his position at the Congress should increase Xi's ability to press his economically reformist, politically illiberal agenda. Bar any serious reversal, Xi will be in a position to dominate Chinese politics after he retires from formal offices.

Xi's legacy hinges on leadership reshuffle

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Corporate Debt ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Quiet Revolution ◽  
One Belt One Road ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Party Congress

Subject The upcoming Chinese Communist Party Congress. Significance President Xi Jinping may be about to upend China’s post-Mao succession arrangements at the 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, scheduled to open on October 18. Xi has engineered a 'quiet revolution' that has introduced new risks into China's domestic and foreign policies. To continue his unfinished revolution and safeguard its legacy, Xi has the incentive and the political momentum to seek a third term as the head of the Party. Impacts Most of Xi's ambitious projects are works in progress, and success is far from certain. Xi’s leadership could be called into question should the economy run into serious problems, related to corporate debt, for instance. Failure of One Belt One Road or a serious breakdown in relations with Washington could cause problems for Xi domestically.

Wang Jiaxiang, Mao Zedong and the ‘Triumph of Mao Zedong-Thought’ (1935–1945)

1989 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-727
Author(s):  
Thomas Kampen
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Power Struggles ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Tremendous Impact ◽  
Party Congress

While Mao Zedong might still be China's most famous communist, only scholars of the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have heard of Wang Jiaxiang and even they have never studied his career in detail. But recent Chinese publications show that there were very few CCP leaders who had such a tremendous impact on the Chinese communist movement in general and Mao Zedong's career in particular. This article will show that Wang not only supported Mao during the power struggles of the 1930s and helped convince Stalin that Mao should be acknowledged as the CCP's leader, but that Wang also played a decisive role in establishing Mao Zedong-Thought as the Party's guiding ideology. The release of numerous Party documents in the last five years also throws some light upon the relations and conflicts between Mao Zedong and other CCP leaders such as Wang Ming, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Guotao and Liu Shaoqi in the decade between the Long March and the Seventh Party Congress of 1945.

Flesh Searches in China

Asian Survey ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Gorman
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Contemporary China ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the relationship between netizens and the Chinese Communist Party by investigating examples of “flesh searches” targeting corrupt officials. Case studies link the initiative of netizens and the reaction of the Chinese state to the pattern of management of social space in contemporary China.

The New Chinese Communist

1955 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 592-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen S. Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Major Obstacle ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

A Major obstacle to analysis of Communist movements is the, absence of firsthand evidence on attitudes and motivations affecting tension and cohesion. The refusal of four thousand members of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Youth Corps to return to the mainland after the Korean War offered an unusually large and representative cross-section of these two organizations for systematic interrogation. The results of such an interrogation conducted by the author in April 1954, while in no way conclusive, provide suggestive statistical and analytical information concerning the composition and motivations of the post-Yenan Chinese Communist.According to official Communist figures, the Chinese Communist Party numbered approximately three million in December 1948 and more than five million in June 1950. This increase of two million members in eighteen months represents the most rapid expansion of Party rolls in the history of the Chinese Communist movement. It occurred after victory was in sight, but before rigorous measures to consolidate control erupted in the “Three Anti” and “Five Anti” movements of 1951. Those who joined the Party during this period form a group strikingly different from the elite of the Chinese Communist movement, which is composed of devoted revolutionaries trained in the rigorous experiences of the Long March and the wartime days of Yenan.

Writing about the Past, an Act of Resistance

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-42
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Official Publication ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
On Line ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
Historical Accounts

Since taking power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has consistently tried to enforce a monopoly on the writing and interpretation of history. However, since 1998 individual initiatives have increased in the field of memory. Confronting official amnesia, victims of Maoist movements have decided to write their versions of history before it is too late. This chapter presents a typology of these endeavours. Annals of the Yellow Emperor (Yanhuang chunqiu), an official publication, enjoyed some freedom to publish dissenting historical accounts but was suppressed in 2016. With the rise of the internet, unofficial journals appeared that were often dedicated to a specific period: Tie Liu’s Small traces of the Past (Wangshi weihen) published accounts of victims of the Anti-Rightist movement for almost a decade before the editor was arrested; Wu Di’s Remembrance (Jiyi) founded by former Red Guards and rusticated youth circulates on line. The third type is the samizdat: targets of repression during Mao’s reign recount their experience in books that are published at their own expense and circulated privately. Most of these “entrepreneurs of memory” are convinced that restoring historical truth is a pre-requisite to China’s democratization. Since Xi Jinping came to power, they have suffered repression.

Party Rectification in the People's Liberation Army, 1983-87

1987 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 591-630 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair I. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Provincial Level ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
People’S Liberation Army ◽  
Autonomous Regions ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

In October 1983 the secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Hu Yaobang, formally announced the beginning of a two-stage, three-year Party rectification. The first stage, from November 1983 to around December 1984, would concentrate on the rectification of Party committees (dangwei) and leading offices at the Centre and in the provinces, major municipalities and autonomous regions. The second stage, from early 1985 to the end of 1986, would focus on rectification of Party organizations below provincial level. In fact, however, rectification was not officially ended until May 1987.

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