Politics of the People's Republic of China
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The People's Republic of China is a socialist market-economy state run by a single party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), headed by the CCP General Secretary, who acts as supreme leader from China. State power in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is exercised through the CCP, the Central People's Government (State Council), and its provincial and local representatives. The State uses the Internal References, secret documents prepared by the Xinhua News Agency, similar to the President's Daily Brief of the United States. China's two special administrative regions (SARs), Hong Kong and Macao, have independent multi-party systems and are separate from the mainland's one-party system.
Aside from the SARs, the PRC consists of 34 provinces including four directly administered municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing) and five autonomous regions (Guangxi, Tibet, Xinjiang, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia).
Chinese political system is authoritarian. There are no freely elected national leaders, political opposition is suppressed, all religious activity is controlled by the CCP, dissent is not allowed, and civil rights are restricted. Elections in China are held under an authoritarian one-party political system. Elections are only held at the local level, not at the national level. China is one of the few contemporary dictatorships run by a party that does not hold direct elections at the national level. The competitive nature of elections is greatly restricted by the monopoly of the power of the Communist Party in China, limitations on free speech, and government interference in elections. According to Rory Truex, "the CCP strictly controls the nomination and election processes at all levels of the congressional system." of the People...the indirect and tiered electoral mechanism of the People's Congress system ensures that deputies at the highest levels have no semblance of electoral responsibility to the Chinese public".
Communist Party of China
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The country is ruled by the so-called Communist Party of China. (CCP), whose power is enshrined in the Constitution. The Chinese electoral system is hierarchical, so local People's Congresses are elected by vote, and all upper levels of the People's Congress up to the National People's Congress are indirectly elected by the The next lower level People's Congress. The political system is partially decentralized, with some internal democratic processes at the party and village level, although these experiences have been marked by political corruption. In China there are other political parties, called democratic, which participate in the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. (CPPCC).
Compared to its closed policies of up to the mid-1970s, China's liberalization has resulted in a less restrictive administrative climate than before. The country strongly supports the Leninist principle of 'democratic centralism', but Chinese politics is very different from the liberal democracy or social democracy embraced in most countries in the Western world and the National People's Congress has been described as an institution that in practice is highly dependent on the central government.
Government
The main organs of state power are the National Popular Assembly (APN), the President and the Council of State. The members of the State Council are the prime minister, a variable number of deputy prime ministers (now four), five state councilors (same protocol as deputy prime ministers but with more limited portfolios), and 29 ministers and heads of State Council commissions.. During the 1980s, attempts were made to separate the functions of the party and the state, so that the party decided general policy and the state carried it out. This attempt was abandoned in the 1990s, with the result that the political leaders of the state are also the leaders of the party, thus creating a single, centralized locus of power.
At the same time, there has been a convention that party and state offices are separated at different levels of the central government, and it is unheard of for a subnational executive to also be party secretary. Conflict between the chief executive and the party secretary is known to often occur, and this conflict is considered to be intentional to prevent either from becoming too dominant. Some special cases are the Hong Kong and Macao SARs, where the Communist Party does not function as part of the governmental system at all, and the autonomous regions, where, following Soviet practice, the chief executive is often a member of the local ethnic group., while the general secretary of the party is not local and is usually Han Chinese.
Under the Chinese Constitution, the National People's Congress is the highest body of state power in China. It meets annually for about two weeks to review and approve the main political orientations, laws, the budget and major personnel changes. Most of China's national legislation is passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NCC). Most initiatives are submitted to the PNC for consideration by the State Council, after prior approval by the Standing Committee of the Communist Party Politburo. Although the CNP usually approves the recommendations of the Council of State on policy and personnel matters, the CNP and its standing committee have increasingly asserted their role as a national legislative body and have been able to force the revision of some laws. For example, the State Council and the Party have been unable to win approval of a fuel tax to finance highway construction.
- Article Nro. 57
- The National People ' s Assembly of the People ' s Republic of China is the supreme organ of State power. Its standing body is the Standing Committee of the National People ' s Assembly.
Constitution of the People ' s Republic of China
According to Daniel Bell, China's one-party system represents a "Chinese-style political meritocracy" that, while flawed, could be studied to help "remedy the major flaws in electoral democracy" and ensure that only experienced and competent candidates can lead the country. The Chinese system prioritizes stability above all else.
Foreign relations
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China has diplomatic relations with 171 countries and has embassies in 162. Sweden was the first nation to establish relations with on 9 May 1950. The Republic of China and other countries dispute its legitimacy, which makes it the largest and most populous limited State in the world. In 1971, it replaced the international representation of the Republic of China as the sole representative of China to the United Nations and as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. In addition, he was a former member and leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and continues to defend developing countries.
According to the interpretation of the "One China" policy, Beijing has made it a precondition for the establishment of diplomatic relations with a country, that it recognizes its claim to Taiwan and breaks the official ties with the government of the Republic of China. Representatives of the People ' s Republic of China have protested on numerous occasions when other Governments hold diplomatic agreements with Taiwan, especially on the subject of arms sales. Political meetings between foreign officials and the 14th Dalai Lama also find the opposition of the People ' s Republic of China, which considers that Tibet is an integral part of it.
Much of its foreign policy is based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence by Zhou Enlai: non-interference in the affairs of other States, non-aggression, peaceful coexistence, equality and mutual benefits. It is also governed by the concept of “armony without uniformity”, which encourages diplomatic relations among nations despite ideological differences. This policy has led him to support states that are considered dangerous or repression by the West, such as Zimbabwe, North Korea and Iran.
Foreign relations with many Western countries suffered for a while after military repression in the 1989 Tian'anmen protests, although in recent years China has improved its diplomatic ties with the West. China maintains a close economic and military relationship with Russia, and often both vote in the same way on the UN Security Council.
In addition to its claim on the island of Taiwan, China is involved in several international territorial disputes. Since the 1990s, the government began negotiations to resolve conflicts over its land borders, such as the Kashmir dispute with India and its undefined border with Bhutan. In addition, there are other multilateral territorial claims about its sovereignty over several small islands in the South and Eastern China Sea, such as the Senkaku Islands and the Scarborough Reef. The prospecting of resources in areas claimed by other countries has led to crises such as the one with Vietnam in 2014.
China is normally pointed out as a new emerging superpower, emphasizing that its rapid economic progress, its growing military might, its huge population and the increase in its international influence are signs that it will play a prominent global role in the twenty-first century. Others, however, prevent financial bubbles and demographic mismatch from slowing down or even stopping China's growth as the century progresses. Some authors also question the definition of "superpower", and argue that their great economy alone would not be sufficient to qualify it as superpower, and note that it lacks the military and cultural influence of the United States.Armed Forces
The Chinese Communist Party created and leads the People's Liberation Army (PLA). After the creation of the PRC in 1949, the PLA also became a state army. The state military system inherited and maintains the principle of the absolute leadership of the Communist Party over the popular armed forces. The Party and the State jointly established the Central Military Commission which carries out the task of supreme military leadership over the armed forces.
The PRC Constitution of 1954 establishes that the State President (President) heads the armed forces and makes the State President the Chairman of the Defense Commission (the Defense Commission is an advisory body, it does not direct the forces armed). On September 28, 1954, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party reestablished the Central Military Commission as the leader of the PLA and the people's armed forces. From that moment on, the system of joint military leadership of the Party and the State was established. The Central Committee of the Communist Party directs all military affairs. The President of the State directs the military forces of the State and the development of the military forces managed by the Council of State.
In December 2004, the fifth National Popular Assembly (APN) revised the state constitution to establish that the state's Central Military Commission (CMC) directs all state armed forces. The Chairman of the State CMC is elected and removed by the PNC plenum, while the other members are elected by the NPC Standing Committee However, the CMC of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee remains the Party organization that directly directs the army and all other armed forces. In practice, the CMC of the Party, after consulting with the democratic parties, proposes the names of the members of the state CMC of the APN so that these people, after going through the legal processes, are chosen by the APN for the Military Commission State Center. That is to say, that the CMC of the Central Committee and the CMC of the State are a single group and a single organization. However, from the organizational point of view, these two CMCs are subordinated to two different systems: the Party system and the State system. Therefore, the armed forces are under the absolute leadership of the Communist Party and are also the armed forces of the State. It is a system that guarantees the joint leadership of the Communist Party and the State over the armed forces.
Human rights
Several foreign governments and NGOs routinely accuse the Chinese government of systematic human rights violations, as well as cultural genocide in Tibet, and genocide against the Uyghurs. The People's Republic of China is ranked by Freedom House as "not free", and Human Rights Watch points out that there are serious and continuous violations of human rights, as Amnesty International also points out. In 2010, Reporters Without Borders ranked China in 171st place (out of 178) in the "Press Freedom index".
Although the Constitution establishes that the "fundamental rights" of citizens include freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion, universal suffrage, and property rights, these provisions do not provide the Chinese with meaningful protection against criminal prosecution of the State, where censorship, including on the Internet, is routinely used to silence criticism of the Chinese Communist Party. The government represses the manifestations of organizations and beliefs that it considers a threat to "social stability" as was the case with the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989, as well as the Hong Kong Protests in 2019-2020. Despite this, the government has had little success in controlling information.
Regarding the death penalty, which is still maintained, it executes more people than any other country in the world, representing 72% of the total number of executions in the world in 2009, despite not being the highest number per capita. The country also has the second largest prison population on the planet (behind only the United States), with 1,701,344 inmates.
The Chinese government actively tries to suppress the international repercussions of its actions, responding to criticism by stating that the notion of human rights must take into account the current level of economic development and the geopolitical situation. literacy, life expectancy and living standards of the average Chinese in the past three decades is considered by the government as tangible progress in human rights. Efforts made in the past decade to combat natural disasters and accidents labor rights are also presented by the government as progress in terms of human rights.