The Institutionalization of Chinese Political Structures: A Review

This essay examines the significant transformations in China's political landscape over the last three decades, starting from 1989. It explores the institutionalization of political structures, tracing the evolution from the founding of the People's Republic to the present day. The analysis delves into the Communist Party's organizational principles, including democratic centralism and the mass line, and how they have changed over time. It also discusses the impact of these changes on the relationship between the Party, the State Council, and the people, highlighting the bureaucratization and its consequences on policy-making and popular influence. The essay investigates the shift from a more consultative approach to a more authoritarian and paternalistic system, examining the implications for the United Front and the broader political dynamics of the country, including the Tiananmen Square protests. The paper concludes by assessing the effects of this institutionalization on China's domestic polity, emphasizing the widening gap between the Party, the government, and the populace.

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The People’s Republic of China has witnessed an unprecedented change over the last
thirty years. A strong economic growth coupled with regional prestige has underpinned
China’s international reputation as a strong contender for being a superpower in its own right
in the Asia-Pacific region (Yao 2013). Thus, China’s prestige in the international sphere is at
an all-time high (Johnston 2013). However, all of this growth has come with a cost, which
consists of an alleged institutionalization of Chinese political structures in the last three
decades that enabled the country to grow.
Starting from the incidents of Tiananmen Square in 1989, China has experienced a lot
of momentous changes and it is important to trace this development trajectory in the
intervening three decades to understand why and how China is the way it is at the present
day. Analysing and determining the major changes in Chinese domestic polity is key to
understand what forms and what manifestations would its political structures develop in the
coming years and decades. In order to gleam into the future, therefore, it is important to delve
deep into the past and review thirty years’ worth of history.
It is important to set the context of the historiography of modern China in order to
familiarize the reader with ideas and circumstances that this paper would be referring to and
touching upon. It is only by knowing the historical context can a political analyst arrive at
definitive conclusions regarding the existence of a trend and the possible direction that that
starting with the trend may end up taking with the passage of time (Kipping, Wadhwani and
Bucheli 2014). Therefore, it is worthwhile that the paper talks briefly about how these
political structures came into being and how they have grown before the period under the
purview of this paper.
The People’s Republic of China was founded on October 1st, 1949, when the People’s
Liberation Army under the Communist Party of China won Beijing from the control of the

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National Revolutionary Army, which was under the political control of the Kuomintang
(Chinese Nationalist Party) (Lary 2015). This was a consequence of a twenty-year long civil
war between the two parties, which was interrupted in between by the Second Sino-Japanese
War and the invasion of mainland China by the Imperial Japanese Army. After the
establishment of the People’s Republic, the administration of the country was under the
responsibility of the Central People’s Government, based in Beijing (Hand 2016). Politically,
the country was being led by the United Front, a body made up of eight political parties,
which was led by the Communist Party of China (Shambaugh 2017). The Central People’s
Government included the Central Military Commission, the Chief Procurator of the People’s
Republic of China and the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China
(Lawrence 2014). The Communist Party exercised its power and authority through the
National People’s Congress, the Chinese’s People’s Political Consultative Conference and
the United Front, as well as through the People’s Liberation Army, which became the armed
forces of the People’s Republic after the revolution (Yongnian, Zheng and Chen Gang 2015).
The Communist Party of China was and still is the leading political party in the
People’s Republic of China, which formulates domestic and international policies through the
Central People’s Government (which was renamed as the State Council of the People’s
Republic of China in 1954). Being the leading party, it is able to shape the political,
economic, social and cultural life of its citizens (Pieke 2017). However, there exists a clear
demarcation between how the Communist Party exercised its leadership and authority in the
past and how it functions now, a difference which is crucial to understand the degree to
which the Party has been subjected to institutionalization.
The theory of organization of the Communist Party is credited to Vladimir Lenin
(Yurchak 2015), the leader of the Bolsheviks who successfully staged a revolution against the
Russian Tsar and the Provisional Government. In fact, the initial division within the Russian

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Marxists revolved around how would the Russian party would be formed; the Menshevik
faction led by Pavel Axelrod and Julius Martov proposed that the Russian worker’s party
should be a mass party, granting membership to everybody and anybody who were
sympathetic to the cause of revolution. The Bolsheviks, being led by Lenin, instead proposed
a party structure that was constituted by professional revolutionaries who would not only
maintain close contact with the working masses but would also be subject to discipline and
close commitment to the ideals of revolution (Lindsey 2014). Earlier, Lenin had pointed out
that his vision of the Party would be organized around the principle of democratic centralism;
democratic centralism was basically a method by which members had the freedom to discuss
and express their opinion on any policy while it was being formulated but once that policy
was subjected to vote, every member was bound to abide by the majority decision regarding
the acceptance or rejection of that policy (Barrow 2014). This, Lenin argued, would ensure
that the Party would act responsively and efficiently to any new development or crises in its
quest to stage a revolution and cease political power.
As a result of the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution and their
consolidation of power during the course of the Russian Civil War, the principles of
democratic centralism was able to gain much popularity among left-wing organizations of the
world. When the Third International was established, it included a clause whereby any party
or organization wishing to become a part of it had to adopt democratic centralism as the
fundamental organizational principle (Degras 2013). The Communist Party of China, which
was formed in 1921, therefore adopted this principle and joined the International.
However, during the course of the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong had realised that
democratic centralism on its own was not enough, in order to maintain close contact with the
masses, he formulated what is called the mass line, which basically meant that along with
democratic centralism the Party would also pay heed to suggestions, complaints and

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grievances and develop its political policies accordingly. Therefore, both democratic
centralism and the mass line remained mainstays of the Communist Patty’s organizational
principle for as long as Mao Zedong was at the helm of affairs (Jingang 2014).
However, after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the Communist Party increasingly
began to distance itself from the mass line and began to rely on the wisdom of elected
leadership in the Party’s leading bodies. This was quite clearly witnessed when the Part
leadership under Deng Xiaoping liberalized the country’s economics to orient itself towards a
socialist market economy, without considering to take into consideration the opinions of the
people into consideration. Now following a flow of authority that was bottom-top in nature, it
engendered a lot of social conflicts that put the Party policies into contradiction with the
desire or wishes of the people. This contradiction resulted in the 1989 Tiananmen Square
protests, which was repressed in a heavy-handed manner (Wasserstrom 2018).
Over the course of thirty years, the Party has adopted and embraced an aura of
institutionalized existence, manifesting as bureaucracy that acts as a compliment to the
government apparatus. Rather than taking cues for policy decisions from the masses it claims
to represent, the Communist Party practices a mixture of authoritarianism and paternalism
both in its central bodies and in the administration of lower Party bodies (Li 2017).
As it has been mentioned, China is formally a multi-party political system where eight
political parties share power, in the form of the United Front. The Communist Party of China
leads the United Front but theoretically depends on consultation with the other members of
the United Front. Initially, the Communist Party did consult all of the constituent parties of
the United Front, which met as the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference every
year before the plenary session of the National People’s Congress, and this was evidenced by
Song Qingling holding the positions of Vice-Chairman (today, the Vice-President) of the

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People’s Republic of China, who was however not a member of the Communist Party;
instead she belonged to the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang – which was a
breakaway faction of the Kuomintang that formed in 1947 and joined the United Front
immediately afterwards. Due to the Communist Party’s practice of the mass line and seeking
authority on a bottom-to-top basis, the Communist Party seriously considered the opinions of
the other parties within the United Front before drafting and passing laws through the
National People’s Congress.
However, after the demise of Mao Zedong, the Communist Party underwent a
complete change on its organizing principles, thereby making its participation within the
United Front and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference a mere formality
rather than a serious commitment to political camaraderie and consultative, collective
governance. The bureaucratization of the Party therefore also had adverse impacts on its
relationships with the other constituent parties of the United Front, which changed from being
one of equality to one of paternalism. It seems that at present none of the constituent
organizations of the United Front have a say as to how the country should be run, as through
the institutionalization of the CPPCC, the present-day Communist Party leadership is able to
stifle any amount of dissent, regardless if that dissent is legitimately in favour of a return to
old political dynamics and commitments as it existed in Maoist China.
An important effect which the institutionalization of political structures in China
pertains to the relationship existing between the State Council and the Communist Party.
Formerly, there used to be a clear demarcation and delegation of power between the two
entities; while the Communist Parties exercised the formulation of basic domestic and
international policies of the Chinese State, it was the job of the State Council to find effective
and efficient ways to implement those policies into concrete action. This delegation of
powers also acted as a check on power for each constituent entity – neither the Communist

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Party nor the State Council could overstate its delegated areas of influence and authority;
although this was not Constitutionally mandated it was nonetheless an informal
understanding, born from the recognition that although the Communist Party was the leading
force of the country it still had to share power and consult with other parties making up the
United Front.
However, since the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the informal separation of powers
dissipated. At present, the General Secretary of the Communist Party also occupies the
positions of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission and the Chairman of the State
Council (Constitutionally termed as the President of the People’s Republic of China). Due to
the disappearance of this separation of powers, there seems to be no difference between the
Communist Party and the Government of China at all and in many cases, government
officials that are constitutionally ordained have to now give precedence to officials sent by
the Party.
From the above discussion, it can be seen how there has been a drastic change in the
organization of Chinese political structures between 1989 and the presented, a change which
took place in the last thirty years. The institutionalization of political organs, manifesting as
bureaucratization, has completely changed the political landscape of the country. Although
this institutionalization has allowed the country’s economy to be reformed on more neoliberal
lines, it has certainly curtailed the ability with which the populace could influence either
policies undertaken by the Party or the legislation tabulated in the National People’s
Congress. Therefore, the institutionalization of Chinese political structures has created a wide
gulf existing between the Party, the Government and the people. It is not known how further
would this bureaucratic institutionalization would affect the development of China’s
domestic polity but it is quite certain that, if not addressed in time, the contradictions
engendered from this institutionalization may lead to violent confrontations between the

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people and State and Party apparatus in the coming years and decades of the future, which
might be indicative of an authoritarian trend being present within the dynamics of the
Chinese political structures.

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