The system of people's congress () under the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

(CCP) is the

form of government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a m ...

of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

(PRC), and is based on the principle of

unified power Unified power is the political power principle of communist states, whereby political power, instead of being separated into different branches as Montesquieu called for, is unified, in the state's case, in the highest organ of state power. This ...

, in which all state powers are vested in the

National People's Congress The National People's Congress (NPC) is the highest organ of state power of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The NPC is the only branch of government in China, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs from the Sta ...

(NPC). No

separation of powers The separation of powers principle functionally differentiates several types of state (polity), state power (usually Legislature#Legislation, law-making, adjudication, and Executive (government)#Function, execution) and requires these operat ...

exists in the PRC. All state organs are elected by, answerable to, and have no separate powers than those granted to them by the NPC. By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP.

System

According to the PRC constitution, all power belongs to the people, and

and local people's congresses are the bodies through which the people exercise state power. The NPC is officially China's

highest organ of state power The supreme state organ of power, also known as the highest state organ of power, is the representative organ in communist states that functions as the sole branch of government according to the principle of unified power. For example, the governm ...

, with the

Standing Committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

being its permanent body.

Levels

The People's Congress System was set out in the Electoral Law of 1953 and has been subsequently revised. Currently, there are five levels of people's congresses. From more to less local, they are: # people's congresses in villages, minority nationality townships, and towns; # people's congresses of cities that are not sub-divided, municipal districts,

counties A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

, and

autonomous counties Autonomous counties () and autonomous banners () are county-level autonomous administrative divisions of China. Autonomous counties tend to have a large number of ethnic minority citizens compared to ordinary counties (if not an outright major ...

; # people's congresses in sub-districts of larger cities and in

autonomous prefectures Autonomous prefectures ( zh, c=自治州, p=zìzhìzhōu) are one type of autonomous administrative divisions of China, autonomous administrative division in China, existing at the Prefecture-level divisions of China, prefectural level, with eith ...

; # people's congresses in

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

, autonomous regions, and direct-administered municipalities; and # the National People's Congress. Direct elections occur at the two most local levels, while the members at the higher levels are

indirectly elected An indirect election or ''hierarchical voting,'' is an election in which voters do not choose directly among candidates or parties for an office ( direct voting system), but elect people who in turn choose candidates or parties. It is one of the o ...

, i.e., elected by those elected in the lower levels. The size of the people's congresses increase with their administrative rank. With some exceptions, township people's congresses usually have 40 to 130 deputies, county people's congresses from 120 to 450, prefectural people's congresses from 240 to 650, provincial people's congresses from 350 to 1,000, and the NPC at around 3,000. The total number of people's congresses throughout China at different levels is over 40,000, and the total number of deputies is in the hundreds of thousands.

Role of the Chinese Communist Party

Nominations at all levels are controlled by the

(CCP), and the CCP's supreme position is enshrined in the state constitution, meaning that the elections have little way of influencing politics. The CCP, through its control of the nomination process, ensures that around 70% of deputies to the people's congresses are party members. The top positions in the system are granted to senior CCP leaders, including the position of the NPCSC chairman, who has always been a member of the

Politburo Standing Committee The Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), officially the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is a committee consisting of the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) an ...

, and the NPCSC vice chairperson positions. Additionally, elections are not pluralistic as no opposition is allowed. The CCP has a central role in lawmaking, which has fluctuated over time. The CCP effectively sits above any legal code and the

constitution of the People's Republic of China The Constitution of the People's Republic of China is the supreme law of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In September 1949, the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference adopted the Common Progr ...

. CCP principles and slogans are codified into the state's legal code to increase the legitimacy of party rule. The role of the CCP in lawmaking increased under CCP General Secretary

Xi Jinping Xi Jinping, pronounced (born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has been the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (China), chairman of the Central Military Commission ...

's tenure. Through a variety of documents circulated within the CCP, the party directs China's lawmaking organs such as the NPC Standing Committee in the lawmaking process.

References

Citations

Works cited