How does the Chinese Communist Party govern the country?

Chapter 4

As the only ruling party, the CPC's leading position in the country is unquestionable.But how to achieve leadership—concentrated on how to deal with the relationship between the party and the government—is a big issue that deserves attention and can be discussed.

From the founding of New China to before the reform and opening up, China's party and government system, as Deng Xiaoping said, "all came from the Soviet model."The outstanding problem is the unity of the party and the government, and excessive concentration of power. In August 1980, Deng Xiaoping pointed out at the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee: "The phenomenon of excessive concentration of power is the inappropriate and unanalytical concentration of all power in the party committee under the slogan of strengthening the party's unified leadership. Power is often concentrated in a few secretaries, especially in the first secretary....The power is too concentrated, and it is increasingly unable to adapt to the development of the cause of socialism....Now it can no longer be resolved." The Sixth Middle School of the Eleventh The "Resolution on Several Historical Issues Concerning the Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" passed by the Plenary Session also pointed out: "We must correctly handle the relationship between the Party and other organizations, and ensure that state power organs, administrative organs, judicial organs, and various economic and cultural organizations are effectively Exercising their own powers." Since then, the reform of power allocation with the goal of "separating the party from the government" has been launched.

However, with the development of practice and the major transformation of the Chinese Communist Party's self-positioning from a "revolutionary party" to a "ruling party", the "separation of the party and the government", because it only limits the allocation of power to the relationship between the party and the government, has led to its in practice. difficult to implement.In China's political framework, the government is a national administrative agency that emerges from and is responsible to the NPC, reports to the NPC, and is supervised by the NPC. The relationship between the NPC and the government is that of the power organ and the executive organ.Therefore, the most important thing about the relationship between the party and the government in China is to properly handle the relationship between the party and the people's congress. When the relationship between the party and the people's congress is right, the relationship between the party and the government will naturally be easy to handle.For this reason, in March 1990, General Secretary Jiang Zemin pointed out: "Strengthening the leadership of the party is consistent with giving full play to the role of the state power organs. The most essential content of the party's leadership over the country's political life is to organize and support the people to be the masters of the country. Our country's people's congress system is a people's democratic system under the leadership of the party. Only under the leadership of the party can the role of the people's congress system be fully utilized; and the strengthening and improvement of the people's congress system can better realize the party's leadership. "

Based on this kind of thinking, the report of the 1997th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2002 put forward the strategy of "governing the country according to the law and building a socialist country ruled by law", which requires "guaranteeing the implementation of the party's basic line and basic principles and ensuring The party has always played the leading core role of overseeing the overall situation and coordinating all parties.” In [-], the [-]th Report of the Communist Party of China proposed that “the Party’s leadership, the people’s mastery of the country, and the rule of law should be organically unified,” and it clearly explained the power allocation and operation methods of the Party and the state. “Further reform and improve the Party’s Working organization and working mechanism. In accordance with the principle of the Party taking over the overall situation and coordinating all parties, standardize the relationship between the Party Committee and the People's Congress, the government, the CPPCC and people's organizations, support the People's Congress in performing the functions of state power organs in accordance with the law, and make the Party's propositions become The will of the state, so that the candidates recommended by the party organization become the leaders of the state power organs and supervise them; support the government to perform statutory functions and administer according to law; support the CPPCC to perform functions around the two themes of unity and democracy. Leaders of people's organizations such as the Women's Federation, support them in carrying out their work in accordance with the law and their respective charters, and better serve as a bridge and link between the party and the broad masses of the people."

This means that the model of party-government relationship in line with China's national conditions should be a model that combines "separation" and "unity", and "separation" and "unity".The "integration" here refers to the fact that the party's leadership can basically be "unified" with the National People's Congress in exercising state power. Of course, this is not a simple "unity", but that the party "enters" the people's congress system from the outside. Including: first, the implementation of part-time job of the "top leaders" of the party committees at all levels and the "top leaders" of the standing committees of the people's congresses at all levels; Third, give full play to the role of the party group of the National People's Congress of the Communist Party of China, unify the ideas of party members' representatives and standing committee members, and coordinate the actions of party members' representatives and standing committee members; fourth, directly intervene in the legislative process of the National People's Congress and its standing committee; Party leaders in leading positions in power organizations do not usually act as party leaders, and the Party’s central leadership organization no longer issues instructions or suggestions of a directive nature to the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee from the outside; Communist Party members who serve as "top leaders" in the power organs must also resign from their positions in the state power organs if they lose elections within the party or are dismissed from their posts.This "unity" system of the party and the people's congress can make the party's principles and policies and the people's congress's legislative work, the party's cadres and the people's congress's personnel appointment and dismissal, the party committee's decision-making and the people's congress's major decision-making, party discipline supervision and the people's congress's legal supervision tightly together.The "separation" here refers to the "separation" of party leadership from government administration, or the "withdrawal" of party organizations from exercising administrative power.This mainly includes: first, the party organization no longer decides on matters that fall within the scope of government administrative power, and no longer directly issues instructions and instructions to administrative organs. Administrative power organs at all levels exercise administrative power independently and uniformly. Second, the main leaders of the party do not concurrently serve as the executive heads of government agencies; third, the administrative power organs are fully responsible and report to the people's congresses at the same level or their standing committees, and no longer exist as they actually do. Responsible and report to the party committee, but have the obligation to report the work to the party committee at the same level; Fourth, the people's congress and its standing committee exercise the right to supervise, question and recall the government administration in accordance with the law. 1 In short, the leadership of the party has changed from direct intervention in the past to indirect leadership of government administrative organs through state power organs.This will not weaken or negate the leadership of the party, and it is also consistent with the principle of "unity of discussion and action" in China's political system.

The Chinese Communist Party has never stopped exploring more scientific ways of governing. In September 2004, the "Decision on Strengthening the Party's Governing Capability Building" adopted by the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly stated: "We must persist in scientific, democratic, and legal governance, and constantly improve the party's leadership and governance methods. The report of the 9th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2007 emphasized that: "We must uphold the core leadership role of the party in overseeing the overall situation and coordinating all parties, improve the level of the party's scientific, democratic, and law-based governance, and ensure that the party leads the people to effectively govern the country." This is The high-level summary and scientific summary of the experience of the Communist Party of China in leading socialist construction and governing the country has important guiding significance for further strengthening and improving the party's leadership over administrative work under the new situation.

Of course, practice is far richer and more complex than theory.Given the size of China and the vast diversity at the grassroots level, it is impossible and should not be uniform in the ways and means by which the Party achieves leadership. The 2009 reform of the large-departmental party-government office in Shunde, Guangdong was the first step in this exploration.

After the 2008th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward new requirements for the reform of party and government institutions, the State Council carried out a large-scale system reform in 2008, and Shunde, one of the most economically developed county (district)-level administrative regions in China, was listed as an administrative region of Guangdong Province at the end of [-]. As one of the pilot projects of management system reform, it is the first to explore in the implementation of system reform of large departments, overall planning of the establishment of party and government institutions, and the construction of a service-oriented government.After planning, Shunde has carried out substantial reforms on the deep-seated problems of the administrative management system, such as government functions, organizational structure, relationship between responsibilities and powers, and operating mechanisms.

While establishing the system of large departments, the scope of the Party-Government Office was expanded.For example, the District Government Supervision and Audit Bureau was established to work together with the District Commission for Discipline Inspection to form a "big discipline inspection"; The Propaganda Department works together to form a "big propaganda"; it integrates all the functions of the United Front Work Department, the Bureau of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs, the Federation of Trade Unions, the Communist Youth League, the Women's Federation, the Disabled Persons' Federation, and the Federation of Industry and Commerce, as well as some functions of the Civil Affairs Bureau and the Rural Work Department. The social work department of the district committee formed a "big social worker".This has formed a new form of party-government joint office—the large-department party-government office, that is, through extensive integration of the same, similar or similar functions in the ruling party's work department and government departments to form a large-scale structure of the joint office.And the United Front Work Department is gone, which is a rarity among county-level party committees in China.At the beginning of Shunde's reform, a question that was repeatedly raised was: Does such a reform make no distinction between the party and the government?The leaders of the district committee ignored the discussion of "separation of the party and the government" or "integration of the party and the government". "We are the grassroots, and the core is to solve problems."Regarding Shunde's reform, Wang Yang, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, requested to continue to uphold the concept of "allowing reform to fail, not allowing no reform", "do not argue, allow trial, correct mistakes in time, strive to reduce reform costs, ensure The reform was successful."

The essence of the reform of party and government institutions is the transformation from a regulatory government to a service-oriented government.As the famous futurist Nesbitt and his wife pointed out, "China's leadership is in the hands of the Communist Party, but the Chinese Communist Party's ideas and methods of governing have undergone tremendous changes in the past 30 years."It can be foreseen that the Chinese Communist Party will continue to explore and improve its governance methods along the direction of scientific governance, democratic governance, and law-based governance.

(End of this chapter)