Overview of Chinas political systemChinas current state constitution was adopted in 1982 and subsequently amended four times[footnoteRef:1]. Its third chapter, entitled Structure of the State, describes Chinas unicameral legislature, the National Peoples Congress (NPC), as the highest organ of state power. According to the state constitution, the NPCs role includes supervising the work of four other political bodies. They are listed below: [1: The 1982 state constitution with all subsequent amendments incorporated into the text is available in English at http://english.gov.cn/2005-08/05/content_20813.htm. ]

The State Council. The state constitution describes it as the highest organ of state administration; it oversees the state bureaucracy and manages day-to-day administration of the country. The State Central Military Commission. The state constitution says it directs the armed forces of the country. The Supreme Peoples Court. The state constitution calls it the highest judicial organ. The Supreme Peoples Procuratorate. It is Chinas top prosecutors office.This political power structure is illustrated in Figure 1[footnoteRef:2]. The Communist Party of China is not mentioned in Chapter 3 of the state constitution, although Communist Party leadership is mentioned in passing five times in the state constitutions preamble.[footnoteRef:3] [2: Source: State Organs, Xinhua News Agency, http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/200302/11/content_724234.htm. ] [3: The clearest statement of Party leadership in the state constitutions preamble is, Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the Important Thought of the Three Represents, the Chinese people of all ethnic groups will continue to adhere to the peoples democratic dictatorship and the socialist road, persevere in reform and opening to the outside world, steadily improve socialist institutions, develop the socialist market economy, develop socialist democracy, improve the socialist legal system, work hard and self-reliantly to modernize the countrys industry, agriculture, national defense and science and technology step by step, and promote a coordinated development of material, political and spiritual civilizations to turn China into a socialist country that is prosperous, powerful, democratic, and culturally advanced. (Italics are CRS.)]

The Communist Partys own constitution provides more detail about Party leadership of the political system, the economy, and society at large, stating that the Party commands the overall situation and coordinates the efforts of all quarters, and the Party must play the role as the core of leadership among all other organizations at corresponding levels. The Party constitution explicitly states that the Communist Party persists in its leadership over the Peoples Liberation Army and other armed forces of the people.[footnoteRef:4] The Party exercises that leadership through a Party Central Military Commission. It, rather than the State Central Military Commission, commands Chinas armed forces; the State Military Commission, which has identical membership to the Party Central Military Commission, is believed to exist in name only. In the Party constitution, Party leadership of the legislature, the State Council, the courts, and the prosecutors office is not explicitly stated, but is implied. In practice, the Party nominates the leaders of all four bodies and operates Party committees within each of them. The courts and prosecutors offices, the police, and some ministries report directly to Party Central Committee commissions and departments. [4: For an English-language version of the Party constitution, as revised and adopted on November 14, 2012 at the Partys 18th National Congress, see "Full Text of Constitution of Communist Party of China," Xinhua News Agency, November 18, 2012, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/special/18cpcnc/2012-11/18/c_131982575.htm ]

Figure 2 provides an approximate illustration of Chinas power structure as currently implemented, with the Communist Party in charge[footnoteRef:5]. [5: Source: CRS research.]

The Communist Party of China (CPC)

With 85 million dues-paying members, just over 6% of Chinas population of 1.35 billion, the Communist Party of China (CPC) is the largest political party in the world[footnoteRef:6]. As noted above, it is Chinas dominant political institution, exercising leadership over the entire political system. [6: 2012 8512.7 (By the End of 2012, National Party Members Reached 85.127 Million), Xinhua Daily Telegraph, July 1, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/mrdx/2013-07/01/c_132499421.htm.]

The Communist Party constitution requires the Party to hold a national congress every five years. The most recent congress, the 18th, was held in November 2012. At each Congress, delegates elect a new Central Committee in a modestly competitive process: the Party leadership nominates approximately 10% more candidates than available positions. The current Central Committee is composed of 205 full members and 171 alternate members. They include 33 women (8.8% of the full 376-member Central Committee) and 39 ethnic minorities (10.4%)[footnoteRef:7]. [7: For details of the election of the 18th Central Committee in November 2012, see Zhang Sutang, Qin Jie, Huo Xiaoguang, and Li Yajie, " 9.3%," (The Ratio of Competitiveness for the 18th Central Committee Election was 9.3%), Xinhua News Agency, November 15, 2013, http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2012/1115/c1001-19584526.html. At the 18th Party Congress, the outgoing Politburo offered delegates 19 more candidates than the 205 full Central Committee member positions available, and 19 more candidates than the 171 Central Committee alternate member positions available. The Party did not publicly release vote counts for individual candidates.]

Each meeting of the Central Committee is known as a plenum. At its first plenum following a Party Congress, the Central Committee elects from among its members a 25-person Politburo, a more elite Politburo Standing Committee, which currently has seven members, and a General Secretary, who serves as Chinas top leader and who is required to be a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. These elections are believed to be non-competitive, with the outgoing Party leadership nominating only as many candidates as positions available. According to the Party constitution, the Standing Committee then nominates members of the Party Secretariat, which manages the daily operations of the Politburo and its Standing Committee and oversees Party Central Committee departments and commissions. Members of the Secretariat are subject to endorsement by the Central Committee. The Members of all the Party leadership bodies are elected or endorsed for five-year-long terms, until the next Party Congress.The top officials in all non-Party institutions routinely hold concurrent Party posts, although they often do not publicize them. Party committees are embedded in the State Council, ministries under the State Council, the legislature, the courts, prosecutors offices, state-owned enterprises, and all other public institutions, such as universities and hospitals, as well as in most private companies and many non-governmental organizations.At the sub-national level, provinces, counties, and townships all have a Party committee and a parallel peoples government, with the Party Secretary of the Party committee serving as the geographic units top leader.Following Figure 3[footnoteRef:8] displays the Hierarchy of the Communist Party of China. [8: Source: Communist Party of China News Portal, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64192/index.html. ]

The Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee

The Communist Partys Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) serves as Chinas most senior decision-making body. The Party constitution requires that Party committees at all levels of the Chinese political system operate according to the principle of combining collective leadership with individual responsibility based on division of work.[footnoteRef:9] Accordingly, each of the seven members of the PSC shoulders primary responsibility for a specific portfolio. [9: "Full text of Constitution of Communist Party of China," Xinhua News Agency, November 18, 2012, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/special/18cpcnc/2012-11/18/c_131982575.htm. The principle of collective leadership is presented in Chapter 2, Article 10 (5). ]

The Party General Secretary serves concurrently as Chairman of the Party and State Central Military Commissions, which have identical memberships, and as State President. He also oversees foreign policy and, according to the Party constitution, has responsibility for convening Standing Committee and larger Politburo meetings and presiding over the work of the Party Secretariat. The second-ranked PSC member serves as Premier of the State Council, which manages the state bureaucracy. He is effectively Chinas top economic official. The third-ranked PSC member serves as Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress (NPC), Chinas unicameral legislature. The fourth-ranked PSC member serves as chairman of a political advisory body, the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee. He is responsible for outreach to non-Communist groups, such as Chinas eight minor political parties, all of which pledge loyalty to the Communist Party, and state-sanctioned religious associations. The fifth-ranked PSC member heads the Party Secretariat, which oversees the Party bureaucracy. He also has responsibility for ideology and propaganda. The sixth-ranked PSC member heads the Partys Central Disciplinary Inspection Commission (CDIC), which polices the Partys ranks for corruption and other forms of malfeasance. The seventh-ranked PSC member serves as the top-ranked State Council vice premier and assists the Premier with his duties.The collective leadership principle is generally understood to mean that the General Secretary must win consensus from his Standing Committee colleagues for major decisions.Since 1997, China has evolved a set of age limits for top Party offices, although it is unclear if these are norms or rules. At the last three Party Congresses, in 2002, 2007, and 2012, no one older than 67 was appointed to a new term on the Politburo Standing Committee or the broader Politburo. Five of the seven Politburo Standing Committee members (all except Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang) and 6 of the 18 regular Politburo members will be over the age of 67 by the time the 19th Party Congress is scheduled to be held in 2017, and thus are expected to retire then. Barring unforeseen developments, Xi and Li are expected to be elected to new terms in 2017, retiring in 2022. Party and state leaders are limited to two five-year terms in the same position.

The externl and internal concerns1. Challenges in Governance

In recent decades, global events and internal strife have brought the CCP to the brink of collapse several times. The 1989 Tiananmen democracy riots and the collapse of the Soviet Union at the early 1990s triggered a series of existential crises for the party that forced it to reconsider its mandate. The Soviet implosion in particular pushed the CCP to undertake systematic assessments of the causes of regime collapse and institute intraparty reform in order to avoid a similar fate. It determined that an ossified party-state with a dogmatic ideology, entrenched elites, dormant party organizations, and a stagnant economy would lead to failure, according to David Shambaugh's 2008 bookChina's Communist Party.Since then, the CCP has shown a technocratic capacity to adapt in response to the developmental stresses of society brought on by China's dizzying economic rise. Today's party "is all about joining the highways of globalization, which in turn translates into greater economic efficiencies, higher rates of return, and greater political security," writes Richard McGregor in his 2010 bookThe Party.Still, leaders at the top of China's power structure today lack the long-term vision for the party that reformists of the 1980s such as Hu Yaobang possessed; Hu, the former party general secretary, promoted greater party transparency, andDeng's free-market reforms[footnoteRef:10]modernized China's economy. [10: http://www.economist.com/node/21533354 ]

2. Internal vs. External Security Issues in China

Perhaps most pressing is the CCP's treatment of the massive income disparity that China's economic boom created; in mid-2012, the CCP announceda new income-distribution framework[footnoteRef:11]set for approval to redress the growing gap. The country's emergence as an economic superpower has heightened governance challenges as China's middle class expands. In particular, the "side effects of rapid economic growth, including the gap between rich and poor, rising prices, pollution, and the loss of traditional culture are major concerns, and there are also increasing worries about political corruption," according to thePew Research Center[footnoteRef:12]. [11: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-05/23/content_15360815.htm ] [12: http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/10/16/growing-concerns-in-china-about-inequality-corruption/ ]

Health care also has been a major initiative for the party as a vast aging population drives government efforts to broaden insurance coverage. Spending on health care will increaseto$1 trillion[footnoteRef:13]annually by 2020, according to the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, from the $357 billion spent in 2011, and medical insurance now covers more than 90 percent of the population, although coverage is often limited. [13: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/28/us-china-healthcare-idUSKBN0GS07920140828 ]

The party has also moved on energy policy,releasing a white paper[footnoteRef:14]outlining China's initiatives for the next five years that includes developing clean energy to reduce its carbon footprint. Heavy smog in China prompted a series of reforms to improve air quality and energy use. The government announced in June 2013reforms[footnoteRef:15]to restrict air pollution, including the country's first carbon market and an allocation of $275 billion over the next five years to improve air quality. It also eased prosecution of environmental crimes and increased local accountability for air quality problems. In September 2014, Beijing launched aresource tax on coal[footnoteRef:16]based on price rather than quantity, in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions and boost energy savings. [14: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/11/22/China-touts-climate-change-initiatives/UPI-95471321986556/ ] [15: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21583245-china-worlds-worst-polluter-largest-investor-green-energy-its-rise-will-have ] [16: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-09/29/c_133683048.htm ]

China's economic growth, which has slowed since its breakneck double-digit growth in the early 2000s, has also been a point of concern for policymakers who have called for reforms to increase domestic consumption and curb reliance on exports for growth. Beijing, despite facingwaning growth[footnoteRef:17], has vowed to meet its target of 7.5 percent GDP growth in 2014 and implemented a series of"mini-stimulus" measures[footnoteRef:18]. [17: http://online.wsj.com/articles/china-third-quarter-gdp-slows-to-7-3-growth-1413857081 ] [18: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-13/china-seen-taking-steps-to-aid-growth-after-credit-plunge.html ]

Meanwhile, China's burgeoning power on the global stage has sparked widespread perceptions of the country as an aggressive, expansionist power. Beijing has protested plans for U.S.-South Korean naval cooperation in the Yellow Sea and reacted vehemently to the U.S. sale of arms to Taiwan. It has staked unwavering claims on islands in theEast and South China Seas[footnoteRef:19]a move that pits the country against Japan and four other neighbors and has caused a diplomatic rift and stalemate in the immediate region. The bolstering of U.S. defense ties with Asia-Pacific partnersJapan, the Philippines, and Vietnamhas stoked China's maritime assertiveness. China declared an East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone[footnoteRef:20]in November 2013 and has conducted oil and gas exploration projects in contested waters. But Beijing has also courted its neighbors: China proposed a"friendship treaty"[footnoteRef:21]and offered $20 billion in loans to Southeast Asian states at the 2014 ASEAN summit. And leaders from China and Japanheld formal talks[footnoteRef:22]for the first time in two years on the sidelines of the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, indicating a possible thaw in Sino-Japanese relations. [19: http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/chinas-maritime-disputes/p31345#!/?cid=otr-marketing_use-china_sea_InfoGuide ] [20: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-11/23/c_132911634.htm ] [21: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/13/us-myanmar-asean-china-idUSKCN0IX0W920141113 ] [22: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f8765ae2-6896-11e4-af00-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3IsDzFb9p ]

Some experts contend that while China's relative power has grown significantly with its economic rise, its foreign policy aims remain defensive in nature: destabilizing influences from abroad, avoiding territorial losses, and sustaining economic growth. Unlike before, "China is now so deeply integrated into the world economic system that its internal and regional priorities have become part of a larger quest: todefine a global role[footnoteRef:23]that serves Chinese interests but also wins acceptance from other powers," write Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell inForeign Affairs. [23: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138009/andrew-j-nathan-and-andrew-scobell/how-china-sees-america ]

By and large, the rational objective for the new leadership in China is to move away from an antagonistic relationship with the United States, experts say. But U.S.-China relations could continue to suffer until Beijing adjusts its foreign policy and political structure more radically, starting with the normalization of its regional relationships.Still,"Washingtonshould resist framing[footnoteRef:24]its relationship with China as a competition, writes Economy inForeign Affairs. "Treating China as a competitor or foe merely feeds Xis anti-Western narrative, undermines those in China pushing for moderation, and does little to advance bilateral cooperation." [24: http://www.cfr.org/china/chinas-imperial-president/p33674]

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