Book Description

This report is designed to provide Congress with a perspective on the contemporary political system of China, the only Communist Party-led authoritarian state in the G-20 grouping of major economies. China's Communist Party dominates state and society in China, is committed to maintaining a permanent monopoly on power, and is intolerant of those who question its right to rule. Nonetheless, analysts consider China's political system to be neither monolithic nor rigidly hierarchical. Jockeying among leaders and institutions representing different sets of interests is common at every level of the system. A test of the political system will come later this year, when the Communist Party plans to usher in a new set of top leaders at its 18th Congress. China's last two major political transitions, in 1997 and 2002, unfolded relatively smoothly. This year, the political system has been shaken by the recent ouster of a senior Party leader, Bo Xilai. The unity of the remaining leadership remains unclear. The report opens with a brief overview of China's leading political institutions. They include the Communist Party and its military, the People's Liberation Army; the State, led by the State Council, to which the Party delegates day-to-day administration of the country; and the National People's Congress (NPC), China's unicameral legislature. The NPC is meant to oversee the State Presidency, the State Council, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (China's public prosecutor's office), and the military. In practice, the legislature is controlled by the Communist Party and is able to exercise little oversight over any of those institutions.