scholarly journals Morality as Legitimacy under Xi Jinping: The Political Functionality of Traditional Culture for the Chinese Communist Party

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kubat
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
State Governance ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Societal Expectations ◽  
Party State

Taking as an example Xi Jinping's use of the phrase “excellent traditional culture” ([Formula: see text], youxiu chuantong wenhua), this article looks at the construction of a centrally sanctioned narrative of traditional Chinese culture in resources produced within the Party school system. The specific focus of analysis is on how these resources theorise the functionality of traditional culture for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a political organisation, and what culture-based solutions they put forward to tackle the problems with Party theory and ideology, the state governance model, and cadre performance. It is argued that by referencing traditional culture, and, in particular, by drawing on traditional moral virtues, the CCP realigns itself with societal expectations without making concessions over the ideological foundations of the party state.

Law According to the Chinese Communist Party: Constitutionalism and Socialist Rule of Law

Modern China ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 322-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ding Xiaodong
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Political Concept ◽  
The People ◽  
State Regime ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Socialist Rule Of Law ◽  
Party State

This article argues that the Chinese Communist Party has adopted a unique understanding of law. Unlike the liberal view and the unwritten constitution view, which generally consider law as positive norms that exist independently of politics, the party understands law as a reflection of the party’s and the people’s will and a form of the party’s and the people’s self-discipline. In the party’s view, liberal rule of law theories are self-contradictory, illusive, and meaningless. This article argues that the party views the people as a political concept and itself as a political leading party, marking a fundamental difference from a competitive party in a parliamentary system. The legitimacy of the party’s dominant role and the party-state regime, therefore, depends on whether the party can continue to provide political momentum to lead the people and represent them in the future.

The Civil Governance of Death: The Making of Chinese Political Subjects at the End of Life

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Huwy-Min Lucia Liu
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The State ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Funerary Rituals ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Party State

This article discusses how the Chinese Communist Party governed death in Shanghai during the first half of the People's Republic of China. It examines how officials nationalized funeral institutions, promoted cremation, and transformed what they believed to be the unproductivity of the funeral industry into productivity (by raising pigs in cemeteries, for instance). I show how each of these policies eliminated possible sources of identity that were prevalent in conceptualizing who the dead were and what their relationships with the living could be. Specifically, in addition to the construction of socialist workers, the state worked to remove cosmopolitan, associational, religious, and relational ideas of self. By modifying funerary rituals and ways of interment, the Chinese state aimed to produce individualized and undifferentiated political subjects directly tied to the party-state. The civil governance of death aimed to produce citizen-subjects at the end of life.

Geopolitics of the Chinese Communist Party in the Twentieth Century

1993 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jieli Li
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Resource Mobilization ◽  
Dynamic Forces ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Party State

Geopolitical theory is employed to address the question of why the Chinese Communist Party-state persists, despite Western pressures stemming from the suppression of student demonstrators in “Tienanmen Square” in 1989. As the theory postulates, macro dynamic forces revolving around the geopolitical processes are crucial to the resource mobilization and legitimacy of the state. The entire history of the Chinese Communist Party is reviewed in order to document the conclusion that changes in the geopolitical position of the Party are associated with periods of internal strength and weakness. Since 1979, the Chinese Communist Party-state has been increasingly favored by geopolitical circumstances, thereby facilitating its internal strength even in the face of Western pressures, potential for internal dissent, and collapse of the Soviet empire. As long as this favorable geopolitical trend continues, the Chinese Communist Party will likely exist as a ruling political force in China.

Social Constructionism and the Significance of Political Rumors in Contemporary China

Asian Survey ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 870-888
Author(s):  
Wen-Hsuan Tsai ◽  
Zheng-Wei Lin
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
General Public ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Contemporary China ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Party State ◽  
Withholding Information

Rumors are a set of collective discussions used by cadres or the masses to attain specific goals. Both political elites and the general public reveal their dissatisfaction or concern with the Chinese Communist Party regime through the dissemination of politically charged rumors, fueled by the party-state system’s habit of withholding information and amplified by traditional Chinese superstition.

The Party Is Far from Over

2007 ◽  
Vol 106 (701) ◽  
pp. 243-251
Author(s):  
Bruce J. Dickson
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Party State

Does the Chinese Communist Party derive enough legitimacy from economic growth? Can a party-state survive by co-opting some potential challengers while repressing others? So far, the CCP has answered these questions in the affirmative. Yet the debate goes on. This year, as the party's Seventeenth Congress prepares to unveil a new Politburo (same as the old Politburo?), we asked four scholars to offer their latest thinking on the subject.

Public Nomination and Direct Election in China

Asian Survey ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen-Hsuan Tsai ◽  
Peng-Hsiang Kao
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
State System ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Direct Election ◽  
Election System ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Party State

Abstract This research takes the case of Public Nomination and Direct Election, currently being rolled out in the People's Republic of China, to explain the function of elections in China. We believe that the goal of implementing this election system is to increase the governing ability of the Chinese Communist Party, thus sustaining the survival of the party-state system.

The New Normal

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-58
Author(s):  
Jeremy Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
New Normal ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Government ◽  
Party State

Since 2012, politics in the People’s Republic of China has been remade. Both institutional and rhetorical changes characterize this neopolitical “new normal,” which coincides with Xi Jinping’s rise to the top of the party-state hierarchy. But these changes extend well beyond Xi himself. Political authority has been centralized and folded back into the Chinese Communist Party, while complaints, self-criticisms, and confessions have begun to air publicly. Repression and humiliation have been used against critics as wide-ranging as Hong Kong booksellers, feminist activists, and rights lawyers, among others. Most ominously, the government has embarked on a massive detention and reeducation scheme in Xinjiang, with the number of those interned estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands or even surpassing a million. This chapter investigates China’s neopolitical turn—its limits, sources, and implications.

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