Understanding Chinese politics

The Chinese political system is the subject of much media and popular comment in part because China supports an economy with an apparently inexorable dynamic and impressive record of achievement. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to China's political system, outlining the major features of the Chinese model and highlighting its claims and challenges. It explores the central role of the Communist Party in the country's politics and the way in which the Party controls most elements of the political system. The collapse of the imperial system in 1911, the subsequent decades of turmoil and war and the coming to power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949 constitutes a truly revolutionary period in Chinese political history. The People's Republic of China (PRC) represents an unanticipated challenge to the logic of history. The key organising principle of the political system of the PRC is the leadership of the CCP. China remains a Leninist party-state. The book also examines the role of the National People's Representatives Congress (NPC) and then the State Council and the associated structures of central government departments. Greater democracy is facilitated, as are other reforms, by the recasting of China's foreign policy to encourage a calmer international environment. China's re-emergence as a major power is the single most important geo-political trend of the early twenty-first century.

Subjects: Politics

Keywords: centre-local relations; China's foreign policy; Chinese Communist Party; Chinese model; Chinese political system; deliberative democracy; Leninist party-state; National People's Representatives Congress; People's Republic of China; State Council

"This volume is brief, yet comprehensive. Moreover, the authors skilfully place their discussions on contemporary Chinese politics within the historical context, especially the brutal wars and thoughtful revolutions that gave birth to the current regime. Such a historical perspective is a necessity to anyone who wants to understand the many apparent puzzles and paradoxes related to Chinese Politics" (Yu Tao, Political Studies Review, May 2014)