Why China's Communist Party is inseparable from the state

This is the fourth in the South China Morning Post's series of explainers about China's Communist Party, in the lead-up to the party's 100th anniversary in July. In this piece, Josephine Ma explains how China's Communist Party is deeply entwined with all aspects of the government.

"Government, the military, society and schools, north, south, east and west - the party leads them all."

This was a line written into the Communist Party of China's charter in 2017, reflecting President Xi Jinping's philosophy that the party should lead in all spheres: not just in politics, but also in the economy and social life.

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The concept sits in stark contrast to the US Constitution and that of many other countries where the separation of powers is a fundamental principle.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the party has closely overseen every aspect of life in the country. In the 1980s, then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping led institutional reforms for "the separation of the party and the state", but in more recent years Xi has instead pushed for the opposite, "integration of the party and the state".

The party's control over the government has broadly taken three forms:

As the Communist Party has rejected the idea of the separation of powers, China's national legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), is by no means a parliament in the Western sense.

Although the NPC is the highest political body according to the constitution and has to endorse key appointments to the government as well as the government budget, it reports to the party.

The NPC has also served as a vehicle for the party to codify its will into laws to be implemented by the government. For example, after Xi called for a nationwide clampdown on food wastage, the NPC proposed a new, wide-ranging food-waste law.

In Mao Zedong's time, the party was in charge of all functions of the government and dictated every aspect of political, economic and social life.

There were signs of change in the 1980s, when Deng became China's paramount leader and initiated reforms to rebuild the nation after the Cultural Revolution.

Deng mentioned "the separation of the party and the state" numerous times during his meetings with party cadres and foreign VIPs in 1986, although these mainly referred to administrative reforms to make governance more efficient and Deng warned against Western notions of the separation of powers. The purpose of such reforms was to "strengthen the leadership of the party", not to weaken it, according to Deng.

The concept of the separation of party and state, later written into the top-level political report at the party's national congress in 1987, urged the party to only take part in major decisions and retreat from daily government operations.

With Deng's endorsement, liberals in the party such as premier Zhao Ziyang pushed for political reforms to mark a clearer boundary of responsibilities between the party and the government, including removing party committees from some government departments.

During Mao's era, several leading groups had been set up in the party to oversee key areas such as diplomacy, science and education. Liberals like Zhao proposed reducing their power so they could only give broad recommendations and leave the actual policymaking to the State Council, China's cabinet.

A think tank led by Zhao also proposed having professional managers lead state-owned factories instead of party committees.

But these reforms were aborted about two years after they started, after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown which effectively ended the country's liberal movement.

When Jiang Zemin replaced Zhao as general secretary following the crackdown, party committees were restored in all government departments, state enterprises and public institutes.

Today, party committees continue to supervise and make decisions across government units, while the State Council's role is largely limited to economic policies.

Deputies leave the Great Hall of the People after the NPC in Beijing on March 11. The NPC is a vehicle for the Communist Party to codify its will into laws to be implemented by the government. Photo: Xinhua alt=Deputies leave the Great Hall of the People after the NPC in Beijing on March 11. The NPC is a vehicle for the Communist Party to codify its will into laws to be implemented by the government. Photo: Xinhua

In his first five years in power, Xi introduced sweeping institutional reforms to integrate the party and the state and form a highly centralised, top-down governing system.

Xi chairs eight party commissions that outrank other party apparatus and government departments. They cover key areas: state security, internet security, military-civilian technology transfer, diplomacy, finance and economy, military reform and national audit.

One of the most important is the Central Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform (CCCDR) which is in charge of all decisions related to "reforms" from how the nation sorts garbage to transforming Hainan into a free-trade zone.

Xi also merged many government departments into the party apparatus, in a move that further blurred the line between the party and the state.

For example, the state office of public reform and the state bureau of public servants were absorbed by the party's organisation department, which is in charge of human resource issues. The state administration overseeing religious affairs and ethnic minorities were absorbed by the party's united front department. And the Ministry of Supervision and the Bureau of Corruption Prevention under the state council were absorbed by the National Supervision Commission.

In December, the CCCDR passed a resolution officially integrating party committees into the corporate governance structure of state enterprises.

While Deng pushed for the party to withdraw from non-strategic areas and focus on the country's general direction and ideology, Xi appears to have taken the opposite direction.

But Xi argued in a speech to the party's Central Committee in 2018 that he did not depart from Deng's principle that the party should be strong in leadership. He added that it was meaningless to distinguish "separation of the party and the state" from "integration of the party and the state" as the most important thing was for the party to streamline bureaucracy and govern effectively.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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