China’s Political System in Charts: A Snapshot Before the 20th Party Congress

China’s Political System in Charts: A Snapshot Before the 20th Party Congress

China’s Political System in Charts: A Snapshot
November 24, 2021
Before the 20th Party Congress
Susan V. Lawrence
This report provides a visual representation of China’s leading political institutions and current
Specialist in Asian Affairs
leaders in the form of 16 CRS-created organization charts and accompanying explanatory text.

The charts present China’s political system as it emerged from the Communist Party of China’s
(CPC’s) 19th Congress in October 2017 and the First Session of the 13th National People’s

Congress in March 2018. The CPC is scheduled to convene its 20th Congress in the second half
of 2022. Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping is widely expected to seek to extend his time in power at that
congress, possibly by seeking a third term as general secretary. That would break a norm established by his two predecessors
that general secretaries serve two terms and then step down. Xi is also widely believed to be seeking appointment to a third
term as state president at the First Session of the 14th National People’s Congress in March 2023.
China’s polity is a Party-state, featuring interlocking Communist Party and state hierarchies under Xi’s increasingly
personalized leadership. In addition to serving concurrently as general secretary of the CPC’s Central Committee and State
president, Xi also serves as chairman of the CPC and State Central Military Commissions and as the “core” of the Central
Committee and the Party as a whole. Below him in the Party hierarchy are the Central Committee’s elite 7-man Political
Bureau (Politburo) Standing Committee, of which Xi is a member, and the Central Committee’s broader 25-person Politburo,
from which the Standing Committee is drawn.
The Central Committee’s 204 voting members elect the General Secretary, Politburo Standing Committee, and Politburo,
ratify the Party’s choices for members of the CPC’s Central Military Commission, and approve the Politburo Standing
Committee’s nominations for the Party Secretariat. A Party Secretariat oversees the powerful Party bureaucracy, which keeps
a tight grip on portfolios the Party deems critical to its survival. They include the armed forces, the security services, media
and culture, and personnel appointments across the political system. The Party tasks its Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection and the state’s National Supervisory Commission, whose operations are fused, with rooting out wrongdoing
among public servants and enforcing loyalty to the Party Central Committee and to Xi.
The CPC presents itself as “coordinating the work of all sides,” and assuming “the role of leadership core among all other
organizations at the corresponding level [of government].” Other hierarchies in China’s political system are those headed by
China’s unicameral legislature, the National People’s Congress; an administrative body, the State Council; an adjudicatory
body, the Supreme People’s Court; a prosecutorial body, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate; and what China calls a
“political consultation” body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). At every level of
government, the heads of those bodies serve concurrently as senior Party officials at the same level. The Secretary of the
Party Committee for each level of government is the most senior official at that level. The Party also operates “leading Party
members groups” or Party committees within the other institutions, and requires the institutions to report to higher Party
bodies.
Since ascending to the top position in Chinese politics in 2012, Xi has worked to bolster both the Party’s authority and his
own. His 2018 reorganization of the Party and state bureaucracies served to strengthen the Party at the expense of the state.
Also in 2018, the Party under Xi ordered the establishment of the National Supervisory Commission, which works jointly
with the Party’s discipline inspectors to investigate public servants. In 2015, Xi reorganized China’s Party military, the
People’s Liberation Army. The organization charts in this report reflect those changes.
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Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
The Mechanics of Communist Party Rule in China............................................................... 2
Moves to Bolster Communist Party Rule ............................................................................ 3
Taiwan in China’s Political System .................................................................................... 4
China’s Leading Political Institutions ................................................................................. 5
Levels of Administration and Leading Political Institutions ................................................... 7
The Communist Party of China (CPC)................................................................................ 9
The CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) Standing Committee ............................................ 11
The CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) ......................................................................... 13
The CPC Central Military Commission ....................................................................... 15
The CPC Central Committee Bureaucracy ................................................................... 18
The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and National
Supervisory Commission........................................................................................ 21
The National People’s Congress (NPC) ............................................................................ 23
The State Presidency ..................................................................................................... 25
The State Council of the PRC ......................................................................................... 27
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) ....................................... 32

Figures
Figure 1. China’s National-Level Political Structure ............................................................. 6
Figure 2. Leading Political Institutions at Each Level of Administration .................................. 8
Figure 3. Communist Party of China (CPC) Hierarchy ........................................................ 10
Figure 4. The 19th CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) Standing Committee .............................. 12
Figure 5. The 19th CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) (Part 1) ................................................ 14
Figure 6. The 19th CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) (Part 2) ................................................ 15
Figure 7. The 19th CPC Central Military Commission ......................................................... 17
Figure 8. The CPC Central Committee Bureaucracy ........................................................... 19
Figure 9. The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National
Supervisory Commission ............................................................................................. 22
Figure 10. The National People’s Congress ....................................................................... 24
Figure 11. State Presidents and Vice Presidents 1983-Present ............................................... 26
Figure 12. Leadership of the State Council of the PRC........................................................ 28
Figure 13. State Council Constituent Departments.............................................................. 30
Figure 14. Entities Under the State Council ....................................................................... 31
Figure 15. Composition of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC)................................................................................ 33
Figure 16. The CPPCC’s Organizational Structure ............................................................. 34

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Contacts
Author Information ....................................................................................................... 35

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China’s Political System in Charts: A Snapshot Before the 20th Party Congress

Introduction
The political system of the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) defies easy
categorization. China is both a nation state and a Leninist “Party-state,” with the Party being the
Communist Party of China (CPC or Party), also known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The political system operates under two “constitutions,” one for the Party, China’s dominant
political institution, and one for the state.1 State institutions operate fundamental y differently
from their Western counterparts. In the case of China’s national parliament, for example, because
China eschews separation of powers, a third of the delegates are sitting senior Party and state
officials, with China’s top leader, CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping, among them.2 The
parliament, like every other political institution in China, both reports to the Party and includes a
Party cel within it. Atop the political system is a leader, Xi, who is not subject to direct or
competitive indirect election, and who has signaled an intention to remain in power indefinitely.3
As strategic competition between the United States and China has grown more acute in recent
years, Congress has shown a strong interest in understanding China’s political system. In the
116th Congress, Members introduced 99 bil s referencing the CPC, six of which were enacted into
law.4 More than 100 such bil s are pending in the 117th Congress. This report seeks to provide
Congress with a detailed understanding of China’s political system ahead of the CPC’s 20th
National Congress, which is scheduled to convene in the second half of 2022. The report opens
with a discussion of how the CPC exercises its self-anointed leadership role in China’s Party-
state. The report then briefly discusses the ways the CPC has embedded its claim to Taiwan
within China’s political system. The main part of the report introduces readers to China’s major
political institutions through 16 organization charts and accompanying explanatory text. Al
individuals’ names are listed in Chinese style, with family names preceding given names. CRS
Visual Information Specialist Mari Y. Lee created al the charts in this report.
Note on Sources and Language
Much of the information in this report is drawn from PRC sources, including Chinese-language official websites
and Chinese-language reports from China’s state-control ed media. Where English translations of these sources
are known to exist, CRS has endeavored to identify them in the footnotes. Because of the difficulty of tracing
Romanized personal names back to their original Chinese characters, and because the names of Chinese political
bodies can often be translated into English in multiple ways, CRS has included Chinese characters in the charts in
this report for reference.

1 Although in English the Party-state refers to both documents as “constitutions,” the Chinese-language terms are
different. T he Party document is a “ zhangcheng 章程.” T he state document is a “ xianfa 宪法.” T he Party constitution is
also sometimes referred to in English as the Party “charter.” “Constitution of the Communist Party of China,” Xinhua,
October 24, 2017, at http://www.xinhuanet.com//english/download/
Constitution_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China.pdf; “ Constitution of the People’s Republic of China,” at
http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/constitution2019/constitution.shtml.
2 “领导干部比例降低！一图看懂第十三届全国人大代表构成” (“The Proportion of Leadership Cadres Has Fallen! See the
Composition of the 13th NPC Delegates in One Chart”), 新京报 (Beijing News) via Huanqiu, March 4, 2018, at
https://lianghui.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnK6PUS.
3 Chris Buckley and Adam Wu, “ Ending T erm Limits for China’s Xi Is a Big Deal. Here’s Why,” New York Times,
March 10, 2018.
4 T he six laws from the 116th Congress referencing the CPC are the Let Everyone Get Involved in Opportunities for
National Service Act (P.L. 116-35), the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2020 ( P.L. 116-92), the Uyghur
Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-145), the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (P.L. 116-222),
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (P.L. 116-260 ), and the William M. (Mac) T hornberry National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (P.L. 116-283).
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The Mechanics of Communist Party Rule in China
The CPC has led China continuously since Mao Zedong and his colleagues established the PRC
on October 1, 1949. In July 2021, in a speech marking the 100th anniversary of the Party’s
founding in 1921, General Secretary Xi asserted that Communist Party leadership of China is “the
foundation and lifeblood of the Party and the country, and the crux upon which the interests and
wel being of al Chinese people depend.”5
How the Party exercises its leadership is not straightforward, however. China’s Leninist Party-
state polity features interlocking Party and state hierarchies that extend from the national level
down as far as the vil age. According to the Party constitution, the Party sees itself “guiding the
overal situation,” “coordinating the work of al sides,” and assuming “the role of leadership core
among al other organizations at the corresponding level [of government].”6
The Party’s top national-level institution is the Central Committee, led by a General Secretary
and including an elite 25-person Political Bureau (Politburo) and even more elite 7-person
Politburo Standing Committee. Party bodies directly exercise leadership over portfolios the Party
deems critical to its survival, including the armed forces (see “The CPC Central Military
Commission”), the security services, media and culture, and personnel appointments across the
political system (see “The CPC Central Committee Bureaucracy”). The Party’s Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission, the latter
ostensibly a state body, enforce conformity with Party policies and loyalty to the Party and to Xi.
The state consists of several hierarchies. The national-level institutions in each hierarchy are the
National People’s Congress, China’s unicameral legislature; the State Council, China’s
government cabinet; the National Supervisory Commission; the Supreme People’s Court; the
Supreme People’s Procuratorate, China’s top prosecutor’s office; and the National Committee of
the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a “political consultation” body.
The interlocking nature of the Party’s relationship with the state hierarchies manifests itself most
prominently in personnel assignments and reporting lines.
 At every level of government, the Party committee is the leading political
institution, with its Secretary (also known as the Party Secretary) serving as the
most senior official at that level. At the provincial level, the secretary of the
provincial Party committee outranks the provincial governor. At the city level,
the secretary of the municipal Party committee outranks the mayor.
 The heads of the state institutions at every level of government serve
concurrently on the Party committee at same level. CPC General Secretary Xi
serves concurrently as state president, for example, while the CPC’s number
three official, Li Zhanshu, serves concurrently as chairman of the National
People’s Congress Standing Committee. At the provincial level, the secretary of
the Party committee often serves concurrently as chair of the provincial people’s
congress, while a deputy secretary of the provincial Party committee always
serves concurrently as the provincial governor.
 In a wide array of non-Party institutions, the Party establishes “leading Party
members groups” (dang zu) or Party committees (dang wei). According to Article

5 Xi Jinping, “Speech at a Ceremony Marking the Centenary of the Communist Party of China,” July 1, 2021, at
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/2021-07/01/c_1310038244.htm.
6 “Constitution of the Communist Party of China,” Xinhua, October 24, 2017, at http://www.xinhuanet.com//english/
download/Constitution_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China.pdf .
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48 of the Party constitution, the role of leading Party members groups is to “play
the role of the leadership core” within each institution. The Party constitution
stipulates that, among other tasks, leading Party members groups ensure
implementation of Party policies, “discuss and make decisions on matters of
major significance” within the institution, “manage officials to proper effect”
(i.e., control personnel assignments), and “encourage non-Party officials and the
people in fulfil ing the tasks entrusted to them by the Party and the state.” The
head of the leading Party members group serves as the institution’s powerful
Party secretary. The leading Party members group reports to the Party
organization that approves its establishment—the Party committee at the same
level of government.7
 Article 45 of the Party constitution requires that the Party’s discipline inspection
commissions—charged with investigating wrongdoing among Party members—
“accredit discipline inspection teams to al Party and state organs at the
corresponding level.” The Party constitution states that the teams “shal attend
relevant meetings of the leading Party organizations in the organs.” The leading
Party members groups are required to support the teams’ work.8
 State institutions are required to report to Party bodies. The Ministry of Culture,
for example, reports to the Party’s Publicity Department (also known as the
Propaganda Department).9
The Party has worked to build a Party presence in every workplace and neighborhood. As of June
2021, the Party boasted 4.86 mil ion “primary-level” Party organizations, including in al
neighborhoods.10
Moves to Bolster Communist Party Rule
Since coming to power in 2012, General Secretary Xi has worked to strengthen the Party’s
presence and authority in institutions throughout the Party-state. In a major reorganization in
2018, the Party moved a group of government offices directly into the Party bureaucracy, citing
the need to “strengthen the Party’s centralized and unified leadership” over “work involving the
overal state of the Party and the country” as wel as over specific areas of administration.11 As
part of the same restructuring, the Party upgraded four “leading smal groups” that had operated

7 Constitution of the Communist Party of China,” Xinhua, October 24, 2017, at http://www.xinhuanet.com//english/
download/Constitution_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China.pdf .
8 Constitution of the Communist Party of China,” Xinhua, October 24, 2017, at http://www.xinhuanet.com//english/
download/Constitution_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China.pdf .
9 T he Publicity Department’s (Propaganda Department’s) website is http://www.wenming.cn/. A full list of “Central
Publicity and Cultural Institutions” is available at http://www.wenming.cn/syzhq/ljq/zyxcwhdw/.
10 “China Focus: CPC Membership Exceeds 95 Million as Its Centenary Nears,” Xinhua, June 30, 2021, at
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/2021-06/30/c_1310036387.htm.
11 See CRS In Focus IF10854, China’s Communist Party Absorbs More of the State, by Susan V. Lawrence.
See also “ 中 共 中 央印发《深化党和国家机构改革方案》” (“ CPC Central Committee Releases ‘Deepening Party and
State Institutional Reform Plan’”), Xinhua, March 21, 2018. T ranslation by the Center for Security and Emerging
T echnology available at https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/ccp-central-committee-publishes-plan-for-deepening-
the-reform-of-party-and-state-agencies/. See also “ 《中共中央关于深化党和国家机构改革的决定 》和《深化党和
国家机构改革方案》诞生记” (“An Account of the Birth of the CPC Central Committee Decision on Deepening Party
and State Institutional Reform and the Deepening Party and State Institutional Reform Plan”), Xinhua, March 22, 2018,
at http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2018-03/22/content_5276718.htm.
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in the shadows to become high-profile commissions.12 The CPC also created a new institution—
the “supervisory commission”—that works hand-in-hand with the Party’s discipline inspection
commissions, expanding those subject to investigations to al public servants. Under Xi, leading
Party member groups within the major state institutions report annual y to the Politburo Standing
Committee about their work, underscoring the Party’s control of those institutions.13
With a 2018 amendment to the state constitution, the Party explicitly sought to strengthen the
legal basis for its rule. In a front-page article justifying the amendment, the CPC’s paper of
record, People’s Daily, blamed the collapse of the Soviet Union on Soviet leaders’ 1990 decision
to amend Article 6 of the Soviet constitution to remove the requirement for Communist Party
rule. In China, the article’s author insisted, “The Party’s leadership can only be strengthened; it
cannot be weakened.”14
As Xi has sought to bolster the Party’s authority, he has increasingly equated its authority with his
own, creating a highly personalized form of governance. In 2016, the Party named Xi the “core”
of the leadership. Since 2018, top Party leaders and Xi himself have exhorted Party members first
to “uphold General Secretary Xi’s position as the core of the Party Central Committee and of the
whole Party” and second to “uphold the Party Central Committee’s authority and centralized,
unified leadership.” The formulation is known in China as “the two upholds.”15
At the 20th Party Congress in the second half of 2022, Xi is widely expected to seek to extend his
time in power, possibly by seeking a third five-year term as General Secretary of the Party’s
Central Committee.16 Alternatively, some have speculated that he may seek to reinstitute the
position of chairman of the Central Committee, which the CPC abolished in 1982.17 Whether Xi
faces resistance to his plans within the Party, and if so, how much, remains unknown.
Taiwan in China’s Political System
The Republic of China (ROC), led by the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalists), assumed control of
Taiwan from Japan in 1945, after the end of World War II. The KMT moved the seat of the ROC
government to Taiwan in 1949, before the CPC established the PRC on mainland China.18 The
PRC has thus never controlled Taiwan. It has consistently claimed sovereignty over the island,
however, and has embedded that claim in China’s political system.

12 T hey are the Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, Commission for Foreign Affairs, Central Cyberspace
Affairs Commission, and Central Commission for Deepening Overall Reform.
13 T he Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, “Full T ext: T he CPC: Its Mission and Contributions,”
Xinhua, August 26, 2021, at http://www.news.cn/english/2021-08/26/c_1310148193.htm.
14 Zhong Yan, “ 把“中国共产党领导是中国特色社会主义最本质的特征”载入宪法的理论、实践、制度依据” (“The T heory, Practice,
and Institutional Basis for Adding ‘T he defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the leadership of
the Communist Party of China” to t he Constitution,” 人民日报 (People’s Daily) via Xinhua, February 28, 2018, at
http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-02/28/c_1122465517.htm.
15 “坚决维护习近平总书记核心地位 维护党中央权威和集中统一领导” (“Resolutely Uphold General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Core
Position, Uphold the Party Central Committee’s Authority and Centralized, Unified Leadership”), Xinhua via The
People’s Daily, p. 1, May 15, 2018; Zhou Hanmin, “ 坚决做到 ‘两个维护’” (“Resolutely Do the ‘T wo Upholds’”), 红旗文稿
(Red Flag Manuscripts), QST heory.com, at http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/hqwg/2021-08/11/c_1127750103.htm.
16 Jude Blanchette and Richard McGregor, “China’s Looming Succession Crisis: What Will Happen When Xi is
Gone?” Foreign Affairs, July 20, 2021, at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-07-20/chinas-looming-
succession-crisis.
17 Ling Li, “How Xi Jinping Could Rule China for Life,” Washington Post, November 11, 2021.
18 “History,” Government Portal of the Republic of China (T aiwan), https://www.taiwan.gov.tw/content_3.php.
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 The PRC describes itself as having 23 provinces, including Taiwan.
 Since 1975, China’s National People’s Congress has included a delegation
purporting to represent “Taiwan Province.”19
 The CPC Central Committee’s 14 departments include one dedicated to Taiwan
affairs, the Taiwan Work Office of the CPC Central Committee (also known as
the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council). The mission of another Central
Committee department, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central
Committee, includes promoting unification with Taiwan.
 China’s eight official y-sanctioned minor political parties include two ostensibly
linked to Taiwan.20 The chairs of both parties serve as vice chairs of the NPC
Standing Committee, and both parties are among those with seats set aside for
them in China’s political consultation body, the CPPCC.
 The CPPCC also al ots seats to a delegation from the Al -China Federation of
Taiwan Compatriots.
 The CPPCC’s 10 special committees include a Committee on Liaison with Hong
Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Overseas Chinese.
China’s Leading Political Institutions
The PRC has cycled through four state constitutions in the 72 years since its establishment in
October 1949. The NPC adopted the current constitution in 1982 and has since amended it five
times, most recently in 2018.21 Prior to 2018, al references to the Party were confined to the state
constitution’s preamble. In 2018, the Party directed the legislature to insert a reference to it into
Article 1 of the state constitution, in an explicitly acknowledged bid to “strengthen the legal
authority” for Party rule.22 After stating that “the socialist system” is the PRC’s “fundamental
system,” Article 1 now states, “Leadership by the Communist Party of China is the defining
feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The constitution provides no additional detail
about how the Party exercises that leadership.
Chapter III of the state constitution outlines the roles of and relative relationships among state
institutions, including “the highest organ of state power” (the National People’s Congress), and
administrative (State council), supervisory (National Supervisory Commission), adjudicatory

19 People with family ties to T aiwan served in the NPC prior to 1975, but not as part of a “T aiwan Province”
delegation. T aiwan Democratic Self-Government League Central Publicity Department , “ 全国人大台湾省代表团的由来”
(“T he Origin of the T aiwan Provincial Delegation in the National People’s Congress”), T he United Front Work
Department of the CPC Central Committee, at http://www.zytzb.gov.cn/tzgs/353594.jhtml.
20 T he two parties are the T aiwan Democratic Self-Government League, officially described as “composed of T aiwan
compatriots residing in the mainland and intellectuals in T aiwan studies,” and the Revolutionary Committee of the
Chinese Kuomintang (KMT ), which includes members with historical links to the KMT , now T aiwan’s leading
opposition party, and those with “relationships with T aiwan compatriots.” State Council Information Office of the
PRC, “Full T ext: China’s Political Party System: Cooperation and Consultation,” June 25, 2021, at
http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/32832/Document/1707413/1707413.htm.
21 China’s legislature amended the 1982 state constitution in 1988, 1993, 1999, 2004, and 2018. For an official English
translation of the constitution, as amended, see http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/constitution2019/constitution.shtml.
22 Zhong Yan, “ 把“中国共产党领导是中国特色社会主义最本质的特征”载入宪法的理论、实践、制度依据” (“The T heory, Practice,
and Institutional Basis for Adding ‘T he defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the leadership of
the Communist Party of China” to the Constitution”), 人民日报 (People’s Daily) via Xinhua, February 28, 2018, at
http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-02/28/c_1122465517.htm.
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China’s Political System in Charts: A Snapshot Before the 20th Party Congress

(Supreme People’s Court), and prosecutorial (Supreme People’s Procuratorate) organs. The
preamble to the state constitution mentions one more leading Chinese political institution, the
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), referring to it as “a broadly based
representative organization of the united front.” The Party describes its “united front” work as a
“means for the Party to unite al the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation, both at home and
abroad” to support the Party’s goal of “national rejuvenation.”23 Figure 1 depicts China’s
national-level political institutions as described in the state constitution.
Figure 1. China’s National-Level Political Structure
According to China’s 1982 state constitution as last amended in March 2018

Source: Graphic by CRS, based on the 1982 Constitution of the PRC, as last amended in March 2018.
Notes: (a) CPC Central Committee General Secretary Xi Jinping serves concurrently as state presiden t. The
NPC elects the president and vice president, but does not oversee their work.
(b) The State Military Commission is believed to exist in name only; the Party Central Military Commission leads
China’s armed forces.
(c) The National Supervisory Commission operates jointly with and shares leadership with the Party’s Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).
(d) The state constitution mentions the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in its
preamble, but not in Chapter III, which covers state institutions.

23 “CPC United Front Work T ransparent, Open: Official,” Xinhua, August 26, 2021, at http://www.news.cn/english/
2021-08/26/c_1310150185.htm.
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Levels of Administration and Leading Political
Institutions
Article 30 of the state constitution outlines three sub-national levels of administration: provinces,
counties, and townships. In practice, China’s political system includes two additional levels of
administration between provinces and counties, namely quasi-provincial and prefectural-level
administrative units.24 China’s government does not treat vil ages as a formal part of the political
system. Figure 2 depicts the leading political institutions at each level of administration. Each
level of formal administration is introduced below.
Provincial level: 34 administrative units: 4 municipalities directly under central government
jurisdiction (Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin), 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions
(Guangxi Zhuang, Inner Mongolia, Ninghui Hui, Tibet, and Xinjiang Uyghur), and 2 special
autonomous regions (Hong Kong and Macao). Although the PRC has never controlled Taiwan, it
counts Taiwan among the PRC’s 23 provinces.25 The Party secretaries of six provincial-level
jurisdictions outrank their counterparts because they serve concurrently as members of the Party
Politburo. They are the leaders of Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong Province,
and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Quasi-provincial level: 15 cities, of which 10 are provincial capitals: Changchun, Chengdu,
Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Harbin, Jinan, Nanjing, Shenyang, Wuhan, and Xi’an. The 5 that are not
provincial capitals are Dalian, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shenzhen, and Xiamen.26
Prefectural level: 318 administrative units. They comprise 278 prefectural-level cities, 7
prefectures, 30 autonomous prefectures, and 3 “leagues” (in Inner Mongolia).27
County level: 2,844 administrative units. They include 973 city districts, 388 county-level cities,
1,312 counties, 117 autonomous counties, and more than 50 “banners” (in Inner Mongolia).
Township level: Nearly 39,000 administrative units. They comprise more than 8,000
neighborhoods, more than 21,000 towns, nearly 8,000 townships, and nearly 1,000 ethnic
minority townships.
The leading political institutions at each level of formal administration are known as the “four
teams” (sì tào bānzi): the Party committee, the People’s congress, the people’s government, and
the CPPCC. At every level, the Party’s role is to provide leadership and coordinate the work of
the other institutions. The head of the Party committee, known as the Party Secretary, is the most
senior official at every level of government.28

24 Central People’s Government of the PRC, “ 中国的行政区划概述” (“Overview of China’s Administrative Divisions”),
April 17, 2009, at http://www.gov.cn/test/2009-04/17/content_1288030.htm; “ 中国行政区划（2020年）” (“ China’s
Administrative Divisions (2020)”), September 15, 2021, at http://www.xzqh.org/html/show/cn/2020.html.
25 Central People’s Government of the PRC, “ 中国的行政区划——省级行政单位” (“China’s Administrative Divisions—
Provincial-Level Administrative Units,” April 17, 2009, at http://www.gov.cn/test/2009-04/17/content_1288035.htm.
26 Lin Xiaozhao, “ 15个副省级城市上半年GDP：深圳总量第一，厦门增速最快” (“First Half GDP for the 15 Quasi-Provincial
Cities: Shenzhen Is No. 1 Overall, Xiamen’s Growth Is Fastest”), Yicai, August 8, 2021, at https://www.yicai.com/
news/101134571.html.
27 Including the quasi-provincial-level cities, the total would be 333 administrative units, including 293 cities.
28 T his is usually the case for provinces, but not for the cities of Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and T ianjin, or for the
autonomous regions of T ibet and Xinjiang. For current provincial-level leaders, see http://district.ce.cn/zt/rwk/rw/rspd/
201302/17/t20130217_766061.shtml.
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Figure 2. Leading Political Institutions at Each Level of Administration
The four institutions are known as the “four teams”; the Party provides leadership at every level

Source: Graphic by CRS. Central People’s Government of the PRC, “地方各级人民代表大会和地方各级人民
政府” (“Each Local Level of People’s Congress and People’s Government”), March 23, 2018, http://www.gov.cn/
guoqing/2018-03/23/content_5274724.htm.
Notes: China does not consider vil ages and urban neighborhoods to be part of the formal administrative
hierarchy. The people’s congress hierarchy extends down to the township level. The CPPCC hierarchy extends
down to the county level.
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The Communist Party of China (CPC)
Figure 3 depicts the senior CPC hierarchy, showing both the power relationship between
institutions (solid arrows) and the formal selection process for those institutions (dotted arrows).
At the top of the hierarchy is Xi Jinping, who first assumed the position of General Secretary of
the Central Committee at the 18th Party Congress in 2012. The Central Committee reelected him
to a second five-year term in 2017. In 2016, to boost Xi’s authority further, the Party named Xi
the “core” of the Party leadership, a designation previously granted to three leaders: Mao Zedong,
Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zemin.29 In addition to his General Secretary post, Xi serves as
chairman of the Party Central Military Commission, overseeing China’s armed forces. (He is also
chairman of the State Central Military Commission, which exists in name only.) Rounding out his
troika of top positions, Xi serves as State President.
The General Secretary is required to be drawn from among the members of the Political Bureau
(Politburo) Standing Committee, the Party’s most senior decisionmaking body. The Standing
Committee currently has seven members. It is an elite body of the full 25-person Political Bureau
(Politburo). The Secretariat serves as the “working body” of the Politburo and its Standing
Committee, charged with drafting the directives to implement their decisions and overseeing the
Central Committee bureaucracy. The Politburo Standing Committee nominates its members and
the Central Committee formal y approves them.
Per the CPC Constitution, the Party’s Central Committee formal y elects the members of the
Politburo and its Standing Committee, as wel as the General Secretary. The Central Committee
also “decides” (appoints) the members of the Party Central Military Commission.30 Sitting and
retired top leaders draw up the candidate lists, however. The Politburo and Politburo Standing
Committee elections are non-competitive, with the top leadership offering Central Committee
members offered as many candidates as available positions.
The Party holds a national congress every five years. Delegates to the congress elect the Central
Committee and Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). This process is modestly
competitive. At 19th Party Congress in 2017, delegates could choose 204 candidates for ful
Central Committee membership from a list of 222, for example, al owing them to reject 18
candidates, or 8.8% of the candidate pool. At that congress, almost a quarter of the nearly 2,300
delegates were themselves Party leadership-proposed candidates for the new Central Committee
and CCDI, who were able to vote for themselves.31 Delegates to each national congress ostensibly
represent the Party’s more than 95 mil ion dues-paying members, the equivalent of 6.7% of
China’s population of 1.41 bil ion.32 Article 22 of the CPC Constitution requires the Politburo to
convene meetings of the Central Committee at least annual y. Each such meeting is known as a
plenary session, or plenum. The 18th Congress held seven plenums.

29 “CPC Central Committee with President Xi as ‘Core’ Leads China to Centenary Goals,” Xinhua, October 28, 2016,
at http://www.scio.gov.cn/m/32618/Document/1495816/1495816.htm. Since 1982, three General Secretaries have not
served as the leadership “core”: Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, and Hu Jintao.
30 “Full T ext of Constitution of Communist Party of China,” Xinhua News Agency, November 3, 2017, at
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/2017-11/03/c_136725945.htm.
31 Zhao Cheng, Huo Xiaoguang, Zhang Xiaosong, and Luo Zhengguang, “ 肩负历史重任 开创复兴伟业——
新一届中共中央委员会和中共中央纪律检查委员会诞生记” (“Shouldering Historical Duty, Creating the Great Mission of
Revival: T he Birth of the New Central Committee and the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection”),
Xinhua News Agency, October 24, 2017, at http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/19cpcnc/2017-10/24/
c_1121850995.htm.
32 “China Focus: CPC Membership Exceeds 95 Million as its Centenary Nears,” Xinhua, June 30, 2021, at
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/2021-06/30/c_1310036387.htm. The membership total is as of June 5, 2021.
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Figure 3. Communist Party of China (CPC) Hierarchy
Numbers are for the 19th Central Committee, elected for a five-year term in October 2017; solid black
arrows reflect the direction of authority; dotted gray arrows reflect the formal selection process

Source: Graphic by CRS, based on “第十九届中共中央组织结构图” (“19th CPC Central Committee
Organizational Structure Chart”), CPC News Portal, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/414940/index.html and
“中国政要” (“China’s Important Political Figures”), http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/394696/index.html.
Note: The CPC Constitution does not require the CPC General Secretary to serve concurrently as Chairman
of the Central Military Commission, but Xi Jinping holds both positions, as wel as that of State President.
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The CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) Standing Committee
The CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) Standing Committee (PBSC) is China’s most senior
decisionmaking body, exercising the functions and powers of the Central Committee when the
latter body is not in session. According to a public Party database of PBSC meetings, which may
not be complete, in 2020, the PBSC met 14 times, or an average of just over once a month.33
Article 23 of the CPC constitution requires the General Secretary to be drawn from the PBSC’s
members. It also requires al Party committees to operate according to “the principle of
combining collective leadership with individual responsibility based on the division of work.”34
On the current PBSC, Xi Jinping’s dominant role chal enges that collective leadership principle,
but members continue to divide responsibility for specific portfolios, as shown in Figure 4.
The CPC’s process for choosing its top leaders is opaque. One U.S. scholar suggests that
“incumbent and retired leaders (essential y current and past members of the Politburo) negotiate
over who wil be appointed and to what positions in order to maintain a balance of power among
key leaders and their factions.”35 In recent decades, the process has been guided by certain norms.
The first is that a general secretary serves two five-year terms and then steps down. Although the
CPC constitution does not include term limits for the general secretary, Xi’s immediate
predecessors in the post, Jiang Zemin (in office 1989-2002) and Hu Jintao (in office 2002-2012),
each ceded the post to his successor after serving two full five-year terms.
A second norm relates to age. Ahead of the 15th Party Congress in 1997, Jiang decreed that
Politburo members aged 70 or over at the end of their five-year terms should retire. (Jiang, aged
71 at the time, exempted himself.) Ahead of the 16th Party Congress in 2002, Jiang tightened the
mandate to require those aged 68 or above at the end of their terms to step down.36 (Jiang retired
as general secretary at that congress, but stayed on as Party Central Military Commission
chairman for another two years, implicitly exempting the CMC chairman position from the
retirement age.) At the 17th (2007), 18th (2012), and 19th (2017) Party Congresses, the Party
appointed no one aged 68 or older to a new term on the Politburo. A final, nascent norm related to
the General Secretary appointing a successor to the PBSC at the start of his second term. Hu and
Xi both served a term on the PBSC, handling Party affairs, before taking on the top job.
Term limits and retirement ages helped to move older leaders out of top jobs every five or ten
years and to give ambitious younger officials a path to higher office. Having an anointed
successor serve on the top decisionmaking body for a term helped take some of the drama out of
leadership transitions. Xi’s apparent desire to remain in power after the conclusion of his second
term as general secretary has cast the future of those norms into question, however. He has
already ended one norm: entering his second term, in 2017, Xi declined to appoint anyone to the
PBSC who was young enough to serve two terms as his successor. If he serves a third term as
general secretary, he wil have cast aside the other two norms.

33 “中共中央政治局常务委员会会议” (“CCP Central Committee Politburo Standing Committee Meetings”), website of the
CPC Central Organization Department, at http://www.12371.cn/special/zzjcwwyhhy/index.shtml.
34 “Full T ext of Constitution of Communist Party of China,” Xinhua News Agency, November 3, 2017, at
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/2017-11/03/c_136725945.htm. T he principle of collective leadership is
presented in Chapter 2, Article 10 (5).
35 Bruce J. Dickson, The Party and the People: Chinese Politics in the 21st Century, Princeton University Press, 2021,
p. 48.
36 Dickson, pp. 48-53. Joseph Fewsmith, Rethinking Chinese Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. 80, 86.
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Figure 4. The 19th CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) Standing Committee
The Politburo Standing Committee is China’s most senior decisionmaking body. Numbers indicate rank in
the Party hierarchy; al members were elected in 2017 for five-year terms ending in 2022.

Source: Graphic by CRS. Name list from “第十九届中共中央组织结构图” (“19th CPC Central Committee
Organizational Structure Chart”), Communist Party of China (CPC) News Portal, at http://cpc.people.com.cn/
GB/64162/414940/index.html, accessed November 1, 2021. Titles from “中国政要” (“China’s Important Political
Figures”), http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/394696/index.html.
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The CPC Political Bureau (Politburo)
The full CPC Politburo is China’s second-most-senior decisionmaking body. Its 25 members
include the 7 members of the Politburo Standing Committee plus 18 regular members. Figure 5
and Figure 6 show the current 19th Central Committee Politburo members, arranged according to
their primary areas of responsibility, as determined by CRS. The current 19th Politburo includes:
 The only Politburo member ever to be subject to U.S. sanctions, Chen Quanguo.
The U.S. government designated Chen in 2020 for “serious rights abuses against
ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” where he serves
concurrently as Party Secretary.37 The sanctions remain in effect.
 A single woman, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan. She is the sixth woman ever to have
served as a member of a CPC Politburo. No woman has ever served on a
Politburo Standing Committee.38
 The two vice chairmen of the Party’s Central Military Commission. The last
military officer to serve on the elite Politburo Standing Committee was Admiral
Liu Huaqing, who served on the 16th PBSC, from 1992 to 1997.
 Six of the seven members of the Party Secretariat, one of whom is a PBSC
member. The only Secretariat member who is not a Politburo member is You
Quan, head of the CPC Central Committee’s United Front Work Department.
 Two current regular Politburo members, Cai Qi and Yang Xiaodu, who joined the
Politburo without having first served on the Central Committee. In a political
system in which officials almost always work their way up rung by rung, both
effectively skipped two rungs. (The last senior official to make a leap of such
proportions was Premier Zhu Rongji in 1998.) Four more regular members of the
current Politburo—Ding Xuexiang, Huang Kunming, Li Qiang, and Li Xi—
skipped one rung when they joined in 2017. They were promoted from the ranks
of alternate members of the Central Committee directly into the Politburo.39
 Nine regular members born after 1954. If the Party retains its norm of treating
those age 67 or below as eligible for appointment to a new term, al would be
eligible for reappointment and possible promotion to the PBSC in 2022.
The 19th Politburo meets approximately once a month. The Politburo often schedules group study
sessions on the days it meets. Recent topics include rural policy and artificial intel igence.40 Xi
requires that each Politburo member submit an annual written report on his or her work to him
and the CPC Central Committee. The Party portrays this as one of several “institutional
arrangements for strengthening and upholding the Central Committee’s centralized leadership.”41

37 U.S. Department of the T reasury, “ Treasury Sanctions Chinese Entity and Officials Pursuant to Global Magnitsky
Human Rights Accountability Act ,” July 9, 2020, at https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1055; U.S.
Department of State, “ The United States Imposes Sanctions and Visa Restrictions in Response to the Ongoing Human
Rights Violations and Abuses in Xinjiang,” July 9, 2020.
38 T he others are Liu Yandong (17th, 18th Politburos, 2007-2017), Wu Yi (16th Politburo, 2002-2007), Deng Yingchao
(11th, 12th Politburos, 1978-1987), Jiang Qing (9th, 10th Politburos, 1969-1974), and Ye Qun (9th Politburo, 1969-1971).
39 Joseph Fewsmith, Rethinking Chinese Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. 165.
40 “中央政治局集体学习（十九届）” (“Central Committee Political Bureau Group Study (19th)”), web portal of the CPC, at
http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2017/1025/c414940-29608670.html.
41 T he Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, “Full T ext: T he CPC: Its Mission and Contributions,”
Xinhua, August 26, 2021, at http://www.news.cn/english/2021-08/26/c_1310148193.htm.

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Figure 5. The 19th CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) (Part 1)
The Politburo has 25 Members; 16 are listed here and 9 are listed in Figure 6, al according to their
primary areas of responsibility as determined by CRS. Al were appointed for five-year terms in 2017.

Source: Graphic by CRS. Name list from “第十九届中共中央组织结构图” (“19th CPC Central Committee
Organizational Structure Chart”), Communist Party of China (CPC) News Portal, accessed November 1, 2021.
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Figure 6. The 19th CPC Political Bureau (Politburo) (Part 2)
The Politburo has 25 Members; 9 are listed here and 16 are listed in Figure 5, al according to their
primary areas of responsibility as determined by CRS. Al were appointed for five-year terms in 2017.

Source: Graphic by CRS. Name list from “第十九届中共中央组织结构图” (“19th CPC Central Committee
Organizational Structure Chart”), Communist Party of China (CPC) News Portal, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/
64162/414940/index.html, accessed November 1, 2021.
The CPC Central Military Commission
The Party’s armed forces consist of the active and reserve forces of China’s military, the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA); a paramilitary force, the People’s Armed Police Force (PAP), which
includes the China Coast Guard; and a militia. The PLA, with approximately two mil ion active
personnel, is not a national army, sworn first to protecting the nation.42 Rather, it is a Party army,
loyal first to the Party. The Party constitution states that the CPC “shal uphold its absolute

42 “Full T ext: China’s National Defense in the New Era,” Xinhua, July 24, 2019, at http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/
2019-07/24/c_138253389.htm. For more information, see CRS Report R46808, China’s Military: The People’s
Liberation Arm y (PLA), by Caitlin Campbell.
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leadership over the People’s Liberation Army and other people’s armed forces” and “build
people’s forces that obey the Party’s command, can fight and win.”
The Party’s Central Military Commission (CMC) (Figure 7) exercises unified command over
the armed forces. Unlike Party committees, which notional y operate according to the principle of
collective leadership, the CMC operates according to a “chairman responsibility system,” with Xi
firmly in charge.43 Other than Xi, the members of the CMC are al serving military officers. The
two vice chairmen, Xu Qiliang and Zhang Youxia, serve concurrently as CPC Politburo members.
Regular CMC members include Wei Fenghe, who serves concurrently as a state councilor for
military affairs (see Figure 12) and as Minister of Defense, and who is responsible for managing
the military diplomacy. China has presented Wei as the appropriate counterpart to the U.S.
Defense Secretary. Because Wei is outranked on the CMC by two vice chairmen and by Xi,
however, the Biden Administration has sought to establish Vice Chairman Xu as Defense
Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s counterpart instead. China has reportedly rebuffed the effort.44
Following a far-reaching reorganization of the PLA’s structure that Xi launched in 2015, CMC
members also include the chiefs of two PLA departments, the Joint Staff Department and the
Political Work Department. The Joint Staff Department is responsible for combat planning,
military strategy, capability assessments, joint training, combat readiness, and “routine war
preparedness work.”45 The Political Work Department is responsible for managing the Party’s
presence throughout the military. That presence includes Party committees, which are the
decision-making body in each PLA unit, and political commissars, also known as political
officers, who serve as the co-equals of commanders in every unit. The political commissar
usual y serves as the secretary of the unit’s Party committee and the commander as the deputy
secretary.46 The Political Work Department is also responsible for personnel matters.
The seventh CMC member is the chief of the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission (DIC), a
position elevated to the CMC in 2017. The DIC is responsible for investigating violations of
discipline, including corruption, in the military. Corruption has plagued the PLA, with the buying
and sel ing of promotions a particular problem. Then-recently-retired CMC vice chairmen, Xu
Caihou and Guo Boxiong fel to anti-corruption investigations in 2014, soon after Xi came to
power. CMC members Fang Fenghui and Zhang Yang fel to anti-corruption investigations in
2017. Al were found to have offered and accepted bribes.47
Since 1989, CPC Central Committee general secretaries have al served concurrently as CMC
Chairmen, but not always at the start of their tenure as general secretary. Jiang Zemin, who was
drafted to become general secretary in June 1989, in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre, added
the CMC chairmanship after five months, in November 1989. Hu Jintao, who was elected general
secretary in November 2002, waited nearly two years, until September 2004, for Jiang to hand off
the CMC chairmanship to him. Both Jiang and his predecessor as CMC chairman, Deng
Xiaoping, held no other Party posts in the last years of their tenures as CMC chairmen, creating a

43 James Mulvenon, “T he Yuan Stops Here: Xi Jinping and the ‘CMC Chairman Responsibility System,’” China
Leadership Monitor, Hoover Institution, Issue 47, July 14, 2015, at https://www.hoover.org/research/yuan-stops-here-
xi-jinping-and-cmc-chairman-responsibility-system.
44 Minnie Chan, “China Rejected Lloyd Austin’s Phone Calls ‘After U.S. Defence Secretary Requested W rong
Person,’” South China Morning Post, May 25, 2021, at https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3134781/
china-rejected-lloyd-austins-phone-calls-after-us-defence.
45 Ministry of National Defense of the PRC, “CMC,” at http://eng.mod.gov.cn/cmc/index.htm.
46 Roderick Lee, “Building the Next Generation of Chinese Military Leaders,” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Fall
2020, p. 136, at https://media.defense.gov/2020/Aug/31/2002488091/-1/-1/1/LEE.PDF.
47 “PLA Backs Investigation of Senior Military Official,” Xinhua, January 10, 2018, at http://www.xinhuanet.com/
english/2018-01/10/c_136885601.htm.
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situation in which they commanded the Party’s armed wing, but had no formal institutional ties to
other Party bodies.
Figure 7. The 19th CPC Central Military Commission
Al took of ice in October 2017 for five-year terms ending in 2022

Source: Graphic by CRS. Name list from “第十九届中共中央组织结构图” (“19th CPC Central Committee
Organization Chart”), CPC news portal, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/414940/index.html, accessed
November 1, 2021.
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The CPC Central Committee Bureaucracy
Figure 8 depicts the Communist Party Central Committee’s powerful bureaucracy, which has
expanded and come out of the shadows under General Secretary Xi.48 It includes functional
departments, offices, and a work commission. Under the Central Committee are training
academies, an institute, and publications. The five functional departments are discussed below.
 The Organization Department is responsible for recruiting and training Party,
civil service, and other personnel, assigning to positions across the Party-state,
including state-owned corporations and such public institutions as universities
and hospitals, and evaluating their performance. The department’s current head,
Chen Xi, is a member of the CPC Central Committee’s Politburo and its
Secretariat. He serves concurrently as president of the Party’s elite training
academy for Party and state officials, the Party School of the CPC Central
Committee.49
 The Publicity Department (also referred to in Western scholarship as the
Propaganda Department) is responsible for the Party’s messaging and for
control of the media, cultural institutions, and ideology. Several ostensibly state
agencies are Publicity Department units, including the State Council Information
Office.50 Publicity Department head Huang Kunming serves concurrently as a
member of the CPC Central Committee’s Politburo and its Secretariat.51
 The Commission for Political and Legal Affairs is responsible for managing
public security and safeguarding social stability. It oversees the work of the
Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and the Ministries
of Public Security, State Security, and Justice, with the heads of all of those
institutions serving as commission members. The commission’s current leader,
Guo Shengkun, serves concurrently as a member of the CPC Central
Committee’s Politburo and its Secretariat.52
 The United Front Work Department (UFWD). The UFWD works to coopt
China’s satel ite political parties, ethnic minorities, religious groups, private
business, ethnic Chinese living overseas, people from “new social classes”—
personnel in foreign enterprises, for example—and intel ectuals who are not
Party members. It also has responsibility for work related to Hong Kong, Macao,
and Taiwan; Tibet; and Xinjiang. UFWD’s leader You Quan is a member of the
CPC Central Committee’s Secretariat, but not the Politburo.53

48 A list of core Central Committee departments and entities under the Central Commit tee, with links to each, is
available on the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee’s website, at http://news.12371.cn/dzybmbdj/
and on the homepage of the Central Commission of Politics and L aw, at http://www.chinapeace.gov.cn/.
49 T he Organization Department’s website is https:/www.12371.cn.
50 中华人民共和国中央人民政府 (Central People’s Government of the PRC), “ 国务院组织机构” (“State Council Organizations
and Organs”), at http://www.gov.cn/guowuyuan/zuzhi.htm. T he State Council website identifies the State Council
Information Office as being appended to (加挂牌子) the Publicity Department, meaning that its functions are performed
by the Publicity Department.
51 T he Publicity Department’s (Propaganda Department’s) website is http://www.wenming.cn/. A full list of “Central
Publicity and Cultural Institutions” is available at http://www.wenming.cn/syzhq/ljq/zyxcwhdw/.
52 T he Central Commission for Political and Legal Affairs’s website is http://www.chinapeace.gov.cn/.
53 T he United Front Work Department’s website is http://www.zytzb.gov.cn.
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Figure 8. The CPC Central Committee Bureaucracy
Reflecting a 2018 Party re-organization of the Party and State bureaucracies

Source: Graphic by CRS. Agency list from Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee. “党中央
机构” “(Party Central Committee Agencies”), https://www.12371.cn/2021/06/17/ARTI1623919675902188.shtml.
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 The International Department pursues party-to-party exchanges and offers
foreign policy advice to the Central Committee.54 Reflecting the International
Department’s lower relative status compared to other CPC functional
departments, its current leader, Song Tao, is a full member of the CPC’s Central
Committee, but does not serve on either its Politburo or its Secretariat.
The Central Committee bureaucracy also includes the offices for seven high-level commissions,
al but one of which General Secretary Xi chairs. The Party elevated four of the commissions
(noted below with asterisks) from the lower-profile status of leading smal groups in 2018.55
Office directors manage the commissions’ everyday work. The CPC commission offices are:
 Office of the Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development
(also known as “military-civil fusion”). Office Director Han Zheng is a member
of the seven-person Politburo Standing Committee and a State Council Vice
Premier.
 Office of the National Security Commission. Office Director Ding Xuexiang is
a Politburo member who also serves on the Central Committee Secretariat and as
head of the Central Committee’s General Office. Among the commission’s
missions is reportedly to “improve information-sharing and coordination between
the PLA and civilian agencies.”56
 Office of the Financial and Economic Affairs Commission.* Office Director
Liu He is a Politburo member and State Council Vice Premier.
 Office of the Commission for Foreign Affairs.* Office Director Yang Jiechi, a
Politburo member, serves concurrently as the commission’s Secretary General.
 Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission.* Reflecting the
commission’s subordination to the Central Committee’s Publicity Department,
Office Director Zhuang Rongwen serves concurrently as the Publicity
Department deputy director. He is not a member of Party leadership bodies.57
 Office of the Central Commission for Deepening Overall Reform.* Office
director Jiang Jinquan serves concurrently as head of the Central Committee’s
Policy Research Office. He, too, is not a member of Party leadership bodies.
 Office of the Central Institutional Organization Commission. Subordinate to
the Organization Department, the commission is reportedly headed by Premier Li
Keqiang. Office Director Zhou Zuyi is not a member of Party leadership bodies.
The Taiwan Work Office of the CPC Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the
State Council are a single institution within the Party bureaucracy. Its tasks include drafting
policies related to Taiwan affairs and “guiding” Taiwan-related work.58

54 T he International Department is the only Central Committee Department with an English-language website:
https://www.idcpc.org.cn/english/. Its Chinese-language website is https://www.idcpc.org.cn/.
55 “中共中央印发《深化党和国家机构改革方案》” (“CPC Central Committee Releases ‘Deepening Party and State
Institutional Reform Plan”), Xinhua, March 21, 2018.
56 Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military Reforms, National Defense University Press, 2019, p.
545, at https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/Books/Chairman-Xi/Chairman-Xi.pdf.
57 T he Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission’s website is http://www.cac.gov.cn.
58 “T aiwan Affairs Office of the State Council,” China Daily online, November 17, 2020, at
https://govt.chinadaily.com.cn/s/202011/17/WS5fb3360d498eaba5051bcb77/taiwan-affairs-office-of-the-state-
council.html.
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The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI)
and National Supervisory Commission
The Party’s commissions for discipline inspection (CDIs) enforce Party “discipline,” including
compliance with Party regulations and loyalty to the Party Central Committee and to Xi. They
also root out corruption within the Party’s ranks. Article 40 of the Party constitution refers to
“ensuring that those who have committed minor misconduct are made to ‘redden and sweat,’”
and that “those who have committed serious disciplinary and/or criminal violations are expel ed
from the Party.” Only after CDIs finish their investigations do they turn cases involving al eged
criminal wrongdoing over to the state judiciary for prosecution and trial.59
China’s highest-level disciplinary body is the Party’s Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection (CCDI), which operates under the leadership of the Central Committee. Its current
leader, Zhao Leji, serves concurrently as a member of the elite Politburo Standing Committee,
though the Party constitution does not require CCDI leaders to be dual-hatted in this way. CDIs
exist at every level of government. Article 45 of the Party constitution requires CDIs to embed
discipline inspection teams in al Party-state institutions at the same level to monitor the work of
the institutions’ Party groups. Separately, Article 14 of the Party constitution requires national and
provincial-level Party committees to conduct routine inspections of Party organizations under
their jurisdiction at least once every five years. The CCDI has launched eight rounds of such
inspections since the 19th Party Congress in 2017, using mobile teams that take up residence in
the targeted institutions for periods of about two months. The eighth round, launched in October
2021, involves 15 inspection teams deployed to 25 financial institutions, including financial
regulators, banks, stock exchanges, and asset management companies.60 The Party’s Central
Leading Group for Inspection Work oversees the mobile inspection teams’ work.
The CCDI is fused with the National Supervisory Commission, a state institution created in 2018
which also has branches at every level of government.61 Figure 9 shows the two institutions’
shared leadership. The National Supervisory Commission is empowered to investigate al public
servants, regardless of whether they are Party members, effectively extending the CCDI’s
mandate to a much broader population. On its establishment, the National Supervisory
Commission absorbed a fifth of the personnel of the State People’s Procuratorate, China’s top
prosecutor’s office, effectively boosting the manpower available for CCDI inspections and
investigations.62 In 2019, the NPC granted the National Supervisory Commission the power to
pass its own regulations. Previously, the only entities empowered to pass regulations were the
State Council, local people’s congresses, and the Central Military Commission.63 A separate
discipline body, the Central Military Commission’s Discipline Inspection Commission, or CMC
DIC, is responsible for enforcing political discipline and combatting corruption in the armed
forces.

59 In the case of former Vice Minister of Public Security Sun Lijun, for example, the CCDI and National Supervisory
Commission began investigating in April 2020 and turned his case over to prosecutors in September 2021.
60 “CPC Launches Disciplinary Inspection of Financial Institutions,” Xinhua, October 13, 2021.
61 A 2018 amendment to the state constitution created the National Supervisory Commission. T he 2018 Supervision
Law further clarified its mission and powers. For an English translation of the Supervision Law, see the ICC Legal
T ools Database, at https://legal-tools.org/doc/ef4c4d/pdf.
62 Ling Li, “Politics of Anticorruption in China: Paradigm Change of the Party’s Disciplinary Regime 2012 –2017,”
Journal of Contem porary China, vol. 28, no. 115, 2019, p. 62, at https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2018.1497911.
63 Laney Zhang, “ China: National Supervision Commission Granted Power to Make Supervision Regulations,” January
10, 2020, Law Library of Congress Global Legal Monitor, at https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2020-01-
10/china-national-supervision-commission-granted-power-to-make-supervision-regulations/.
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Figure 9. The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National
Supervisory Commission
The CCDI is a Party body and the NSC a state body, but they work jointly and share top leaders

Source: Graphic by CRS. Name list and titles from website of the CCDI/National Supervisory Commission, at
https://www.ccdi.gov.cn/xxgk/ldjg/, accessed November 1, 2021.
Notes: The only CCDI Deputy Secretary who does not hold a post with the National Supervisory Commission
is Zhang Shengmin, who heads the Party Central Military Commission’s Discipline Inspection Commission.

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The National People’s Congress (NPC)
Figure 10 shows the National People’s Congress, China’s unicameral legislature. The state
constitution confers on the NPC the powers to amend the state constitution; oversee its
enforcement; enact and amend “criminal, civil, state institutional and other basic laws”; elect and
remove top officials of the state and the judiciary; approve the state budget and plans for national
economic and social development; and “decid[e] on issues concerning war and peace.”
China’s people do not directly elect the NPC’s nearly 3,000 delegates. Rather, delegates to
provincial-level people’s congresses and members of election councils for the People’s Liberation
Army, Hong Kong, Macao, and “Taiwan compatriots” elect NPC delegates, based on candidate
lists drawn up by the Party. China rejects separation of powers, so a third of NPC delegates are
serving Party and state officials. (In the current congress, the 13th (2018-2023), Xi Jinping is a
member of the Inner Mongolia delegation. In the 12th Congress (2013-2018), Xi was a member of
the Shanghai delegation.) A quarter of delegates to the current congress are women.64
Al delegates meet for a single annual session of about a week in early March. For the rest of the
year, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) exercises the legislative power of the state. The
NPCSC Chairman is the NPC’s highest official. He serves concurrently on the Party’s Politburo
Standing Committee and is the Party’s third-highest-ranking official. Eight of the NPC’s 14 vice
chairpersons head minor political parties loyal to the CPC. (For more on these parties, see “The
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).”) Al of the vice chairpersons are
currently subject to U.S. sanctions pursuant to Section 5(g) of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, so
designated because of the NPCSC’s role in “developing and adopting” a 2020 national security
law for Hong Kong.65 The NPCSC currently has 168 members. The state constitution stipulates
that none of them may concurrently hold office in other state bodies. (Concurrent Party posts are
al owed.) Many of the NPC’s top officials are thus retired senior officials. They are able to extend
their political careers by up to 10 years by serving in the NPC.
The NPCSC usual y convenes every two months. The state constitution assigns it specific
powers, including interpreting the constitution; enacting and amending laws other than those to be
enacted by the full NPC; interpreting laws; overseeing the work of the State Council, Central
Military Commission, National Supervisory Commission, Supreme People’s Court, and Supreme
People’s Procuratorate; deciding on the appointment or removal of the PRC’s representatives
abroad; ratifying and abrogating treaties and other important agreements with foreign countries;
in certain circumstances, declaring a state of war; deciding on national or local mobilization; and
deciding whether to declare a state of emergency nationwide or in parts of the country. Four
working bodies, composed of staff and outside experts, support the NPCSC. Ten NPC specialized
committees, composed of deputies, meet throughout the year, usual y once a month. They do not
have the power to amend legislation, but do have a formal role in advising the Standing
Committee and the full Congress on legislation.

64 “领导干部比例降低！一图看懂第十三届全国人大代表构成” (“The Proportion of Leadership Cadres Has Fallen! See the
Composition of the 13th NPC Delegates in One Chart”), 新京报 (Beijing News) via Huanqiu, March 4, 2018,
https://lianghui.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnK6PUS.
65 U.S. Department of State, “ Update to Report on Identification of Foreign Persons Involved in the Erosion of the
Obligations of China Under the Joint Declaration or the Basic Law,” March 16, 2021, at https://www.state.gov/update-
to-report-on-identification-of-foreign-persons-involved-in-the-erosion-of-the-obligations-of-china-under-the-joint-
declaration-or-the-basic-law/; U.S. Department of the T reasury, “ Hong Kong-Related Designations Updates,” March
17, 2021, at https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions/20210317; U.S. Department of
the T reasury, “Hong Kong-related Designations,” December 7, 2020, at https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/
financial-sanctions/recent-actions/20201207.
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Figure 10. The National People’s Congress
The NPC is China’s unicameral legislature

Source: Graphic by CRS, based on National People’s Congress of the PRC, “人大机构” (“NPC Agencies”), at
http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c507/rdjg.shtml.
Notes: With vacancies, as of November 15, 2021, the NPC Standing Committee comprised 168 members,
including the chairperson, 14 vice-chairpersons, and the secretary-general. Because the NPC does not have a
specialized committee specifical y focused on military affairs, the Foreign Affairs Committee is responsible for
advising on legislation on both foreign affairs and defense matters. The Foreign Affairs Committee also has
responsibility for international parliamentary exchanges and issues public statements on major foreign policy
developments.

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The State Presidency
The State President serves as China’s head of state.66 The Party nominates candidates for the
positions of President and Vice President and deputies to the National People’s Congress formaly
elect them. So far, such elections have always been non-competitive, with deputies offered a
single candidate for each position.
Prior to 2018, Article 79 of the state constitution stated that PRC presidents and vice-presidents
“shal serve no more than two consecutive terms.”67 In 2018, however, the Party directed the NPC
to amend the constitution to remove those words, opening the way for Xi Jinping to seek a third
term as state president starting in March 2023.68 NPC Spokesperson Zhang Yesui defended the
move by pointing to the absence of term limits for the positions of Party general secretary and
Party Central Military Commission chairman, both positions Xi currently occupies. Removing
term limits for state president, Zhang said, “benefits protecting the authority of the party center
and collective leadership with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, and benefits the strengthening and
perfecting of the national leadership system.”69 Zhang appeared to be suggesting that Xi would
need to be able to serve a third term as state president because that position and the general
secretary position are linked, and Xi would be continuing to serve in his Party posts after the 20th
Party Congress in 2022.
As Figure 11 shows, Jiang Zemin was the first general secretary of the CPC Central Committee
to serve concurrently as state president, adding the post in 1993, nearly four years into his tenure
as general secretary. Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping both served a five-year term as vice president
before their elevation to the concurrent positions of Party general secretary and state president.
Xi, however, has resisted appointing a vice president who might succeed him. The vice president
in his first term, Li Yuanchao, retired in 2017 after a single term, at age 67. Current Vice President
Wang Qishan, who was born in 1948, had already exceeded the Party’s retirement age for
Politburo members when he took office in 2018. He holds no concurrent Communist Party post.70
Article 80 of the constitution states that pursuant to decisions of the NPC and NPC Standing
Committee, the President promulgates laws; appoints or removes the State Council’s premier,
vice premiers, and secretary general, and the heads of constituent departments of the State
Council; confers national medals and titles of honor; issues orders of special pardon; declares a
state of emergency; and declares a state or war; and issues mobilization orders. Article 81 of the
constitution states that the President also engages in affairs of state; receives foreign diplomatic
envoys on behalf of the PRC; appoints or recal s representatives abroad, pursuant to NPC
Standing Committee decisions; and ratifies or abrogates treaties and important agreements with
foreign countries, also pursuant to NPC Standing Committee decisions. Other than appointing

66 A literal translation of the Chinese name for the office of state president is “Chairman,” but China’s official
translation of the title is “President.”
67 “Constitution of the PRC (Full text after amendment on March 14, 2004),” at http://english.www.gov.cn/archive/
laws_regulations/2014/08/23/content_281474982987458.htm.
68 T he vote to amend the constitution was 2,958 for, to 2 against, with 3 abstentions and one ballot invalidated. Nectar
Gan, “Xi Jinping Cleared to Stay on as China’s President with Just 2 Dissenters Among 2,964 Votes,” South China
Morning Post, March 11, 2018, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2136719/xi-jinping-cleared-
stay-president -chinas-political.
69 “China Says Lifting T erm Limits Is About Protecting Authority of Party,” Reuters, March 4, 2018,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-parliament -politics/china-says-lifting-term-limits-is-about -protecting-
authority-of-party-idUSKBN1GG0CR.
70 Central People’s Government of the PRC “ 王岐山简历” (“Resume of Wang Qishan”), March 17, 2018, at
http://www.gov.cn/guoqing/2018-03/17/content_5275066.htm.
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and, if need be, removing its top officials, the President official y has no role in the operations of
the State Council, a separate political institution. The state constitution states that the state vice
president “shal assist the president in his or her work” and may “when so entrusted by the
president, exercise part of the functions and powers of the president on his or her behalf.”
Figure 11. State Presidents and Vice Presidents 1983-Present
CPC General Secretaries have served concurrently as State President since 1993

Source: Graphic by CRS.“历届中华人民共和国主席”(“Successive Presidents of the People’s Republic of
China,” Website of the Central People’s Government of the PRC, http://www.gov.cn/test/2007-11/12/
content_802099.htm, accessed November 1, 2021.

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The State Council of the PRC
The State Council is the cabinet of China’s government, the Central People’s Government. The
state constitution describes the State Council as “the highest organ of State administration.” It is
official y responsible for implementing policies formulated by the CPC and laws passed by the
National People’s Congress, and for overseeing the day-to-day work of the State bureaucracy.
The State Council has the power to pass its own regulations and to draft or authorize ministries to
draft legislation, which it forwards to the National People’s Congress for passage into law.
During the early decades of Communist rule, the Party and the state operated as one. In the late
1970s, during the transition away from Maoism, the CPC began separating Party and government
functions, authorizing the State Council and “people’s governments” at lower levels to manage
the day-to-day administration of the country.71 Now, under General Secretary Xi, the CPC appears
to be moving in the opposite direction, with the Party bureaucracy increasingly taking over
functions previously performed by the State Council. In the 2018 institutional reorganization, the
seventh for the state and the fourth for the Party since 1981, the Party took over direct
management of several agencies that were previously part of the State Council. It also elevated
what had been Party “leading smal groups,” operating behind the scenes, to become high-profile
Party commissions leading policy in their respective areas.72
Figure 12 shows the State Council leadership. The State Council is headed by a premier, who
serves concurrently as the Party’s second-highest-ranked official. The State President formal y
appoints him to his post. Four vice premiers assist the premier. One sits with him on the Party’s
Politburo Standing Committee. The remaining three are regular members of the Party’s 25-person
Politburo. Just below the vice premiers in rank are five State Councilors. State Councilors are full
members of the Party’s Central Committee, but do not hold seats on the more elite Politburo. Al
hold office for five-year terms.
The government does not announce the portfolios of vice premiers. That information comes into
focus over time as vice premiers conduct public activities in their areas of responsibility. Because
most state councilors serve concurrently in other major State Council positions, their portfolios
are, by contrast, usual y clear early on. In the current State Council, Wang Yi is the first foreign
minister since 1993 to serve concurrently as a state councilor, a position more senior than foreign
minister.73 As a state councilor, Wang is the bureaucratic equal of the ministers of defense and
public security, who also hold the title of state councilor. As a diplomat, however, Wang is
outranked by his colleague Yang Jiechi, a former state councilor and foreign minister, who is a
member of the Party Politburo and serves as Secretary General of and Office Director for the
Commission for Foreign Affairs of the CPC Central Committee.
In addition to the Premier, the Vice Premiers, the State Councilors, and a Secretary General, the
State Council includes the ministers of China’s 21 government ministries, the chairmen of three
ministerial-level commissions, the governor of the central bank, known as the People’s Bank of
China, and the head of the National Audit Office. (See Figure 13.)

71 For more information about the establishment of the state system as a separate political institution, see Zhou
Guanghui, “T owards Good Government: T hirty Years of Administrative Reforms in China,” in Yu Keping, ed., The
Reform of Governance (Koninklijke Brill NV and Social Sciences Academic Press, 2010), pp. 137 -180.
72 “中共中央印发《深化党和国家机构改革方案》” (“CPC Central Committee Releases ‘Deepening Party and State
Institutional Reform Plan’”), Xinhua, March 21, 2018, at http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-03/21/
c_1122570517.htm.
73 Prior figures who have served concurrently in both posts are Qian Qichen (1991 -1993); Wu Xueqian (1983-1988);
and Huang Hua (1982-1983). T he 1982 state constitution created the position.
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Figure 12. Leadership of the State Council of the PRC
Al took of ice in March 2018 for five-year terms

Source: Graphic by CRS. PRC Central People’s Government, “国务院领导” (“State Council Leaders”),
http://www.gov.cn/guowuyuan/index.htm, accessed November 1, 2021.
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The broader State Council organization includes agencies, offices, and public institutions under
the State Council. (See Figure 14.) The current state bureaucracy is the product of the 2018
government reorganization, which created seven new ministries and commissions and eight new
agencies under the State Council.74
The CPC controls the state bureaucracy in part through the presence of leading Party member
groups within each state institution. (See “The Mechanics of Communist Party Rule in China.”)
For most constituent departments of the State Council, the minister, chairperson, or director
serves concurrently as Party secretary of the department’s leading party members group. As of
November 2021, 4 of the State Council’s 26 constituent departments did not follow that rule: The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), Ministry of Transport,
and People’s Bank of China (PBOC).75 State institutions also report to higher-level Party bodies.
The Minister of Defense, for example, serves concurrently as a member of the Party’s Central
Military Commission (CMC), where he is outranked by the CMC’s chairman and two vice
chairmen. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Xinhua News Agency, China Media Group
and other agencies al report to the Central Committee’s Publicity Department.76
China’s State Council website confirms that several institutions with “State Council,” “state,” or
“national” in their names belong to the Party bureaucracy, rather than the state.77 They include:
 the State Council Information Office and the National Press and Publication
Administration, both units of the CPC Publicity Department;
 the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and the National
Religious Affairs Administration, both units of the CPC United Front Work
Department; and
 the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, also known as the Taiwan Work
Office of the CPC Central Committee.
Entities under the State Council include the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration
Council of the State Council, known as SASAC. It supervises the state-owned assets of
enterprises under the supervision of the Central Government, a category that currently comprises
96 giant state-owned enterprises. They include three of the top five companies on the 2021
Fortune Global 500 list.78

74 For a translation of the reorganization plan, see Center for Security and Emerging T echnology, “CCP Central
Committee Publishes Plan for Deepening the Reform of Party and State
Agencies中共中央印发《深化党和国家机构改革方案》,” March 18, 2021, at https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/ccp-
central-committee-publishes-plan-for-deepening-the-reform-of-party-and-state-agencies/.
75 “司法部结束“双首长制”设置，部委党政领导分设有何讲究？” (“Ministry of Justice Ends ‘Double Boss System’ Arrangement,
What Are the Details of the Division of Party and Government Leaders in Ministries and Commissions?”), 南方都市报
(Southern Metropolis News), August 4, 2021, at https://www.sohu.com/a/481460428_161795. The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and PBOC websites list the Party secretary after the minister. T he MEE and Ministry of T ransport websites list
the Party secretary ahead of the minister.
76 A full list of “Central Publicity and Cultural Institutions” is available at http://www.wenming.cn/syzhq/ljq/
zyxcwhdw/.
77 Central People’s Government of the PRC, “ 国务院组织机构” (“State Council Organizations and Organs”), at
http://www.gov.cn/guowuyuan/zuzhi.htm. PRC terminology in such situations can be difficult to parse. T he NPC
Observer blog provides a useful glossary. NPC Observer, “Bilingual State Council Organizational Chart,” July 20,
2021, at https://npcobserver.com/resources/bilingual-state-council-organizational-chart/.
78 T he three companies are China State Grid Corporation of China, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and
China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec). State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Council of the State
Council (SASAC), “ Directory,” at http://en.sasac.gov.cn/n_688.htm; Ding Yining, “ 18 Chinese Companies Make
Debut in Fortune Global 500 List,” Shanghai Daily, August 2, 2021, https://www.shine.cn/biz/economy/2108023008/.
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Figure 13. State Council Constituent Departments
Reflecting the March 2018 government reorganization

Source: Graphic by CRS. Central People’s Government of the PRC, “国务院组织机构” (“Organization
Structure of the State Council),” http://www.gov.cn/guowuyuan/zuzhi.htm.
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Figure 14. Entities Under the State Council
Reflecting the March 2018 government reorganization

Source: Graphic by CRS. Central People’s Government of the PRC, “国务院组织机构” (“Organization
Structure of the State Council),” http://www.gov.cn/guowuyuan/zuzhi.htm.
Notes: “Admin.” is an abbreviation for “Administration.”
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The Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC)
The CPPCC defines its duties as “upholding and strengthening the [Communist] Party’s
leadership over al areas,” “unifying, educating and guiding representatives of ethnic minorities
and al sectors on the Party’s new theories,” and “defusing problems and building consensus.”79
In practice, the CPPCC serves as a vehicle for the CPC’s efforts to win over a broad array of
groups to support the CPC’s goals. The CPC refers to this exercise as building a “patriotic united
front.” The CPPCC is also at the center of the CPC’s claim to lead a system of “multiparty
cooperation and political consultation,” a political model that the CPC touts as superior to
Western-style democracy.80 Signaling the importance of the CPPCC’s agenda to the Party
leadership, the Party’s fourth-most-senior official traditional y serves as chairman of the National
Committee of the CPPCC.
The Party and state constitutions define the united front as including “al socialist workers, al
those working for the socialist cause, al patriots who support socialism, al patriots who support
the reunification of the motherland, and al patriots who are dedicated to the rejuvenation of the
Chinese nation.” The CPPCC breaks the united front into 34 groups targeted for representation in
its ranks: 9 political parties, personages without Party affiliation, 8 social organizations, 13
“social circles,” and 3 categories of “special y invited personages.”81 (See Figure 15.)
The eight political parties other than the CPC al date from before the CPC came to power. The
CPC requires them al to accept its leadership. The CPC also restricts their recruitment. The
largest of the minor parties, the China Democratic League, has a membership of approximately
330,000. The smal est, the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, claims a membership of
about 3,300. The combined membership of al eight parties is just over 1.3 mil ion, compared to
the CPC’s membership of 95 mil ion.82 Several of the minor parties have names unrelated to their
constituencies. The Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, for example, is the party for
those in “medicine, health care, human resources, the eco-environment, and relevant fields of
education, science and technology.” The China Association for Promoting Democracy recruits
“intel ectuals in education, culture, publishing, and relevant fields of science and technology.”83
The eight social organizations represented in the CPPCC National Committee include two youth
groups, the Communist Youth League of China and the Al -China Youth Federation. Another of
the social organizations is China’s only official y-sanctioned trade union organization, the Al -
China Federation of Trade Unions. The 13 “social circles” represented in the CPPCC National
Committee include professions such as agriculture, education, journalism, and medicine. They
also include ethnic minorities and religious groups. Organizations dedicated to “friendship with
foreign countries” constitute their own “social circle.”

79 T he National Committee of the CPPCC, “Roles and Functions of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference,” August 26, 2021, at http://en.cppcc.gov.cn/2021-08/26/c_470023.htm.
80 State Council Information Office of the PRC, “Full T ext: China’s Political Party System: Cooperation and
Consultation,” June 25, 2021, at http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/32832/Document/1707413/1707413.htm.
81 T he National Committee of the CPPCC, “中国人民政治协商会议第十三届全国委员会委员名单” (“Name List for the 13th
National Committee of the CPPCC”), May 11, 2020, at http://www.cppcc.gov.cn/zxww/2020/05/11/
ART I1589179608333237.shtml.
82 State Council Information Office of the PRC, “Full T ext: China’s Political Party System: Cooperation and
Consultation,” June 25, 2021.
83 Ibid.
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Figure 15. Composition of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC)
Reflecting the 13th National Committee of the CPPCC (2018-2023)

Source: Graphic by CRS. The National Committee of the CPPCC, “中国人民政治协商会议第十三届全国委
员会委员名单” (“Name List for the 13th National Committee of the CPPCC”), May 11, 2020,
http://www.cppcc.gov.cn/zxww/2020/05/11/ARTI1589179608333237.shtml; National Committee of the CPPCC,
“Participating Groups,” http://en.cppcc.gov.cn/participatinggroups.html.
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Figure 16. The CPPCC’s Organizational Structure

Source: Graphic by CRS. National Committee of the CPPCC, “中国人民政治协商会议” (“CPPCC”),
http://www.cppcc.gov.cn/zxww/newcppcc/jgzc/index.shtml; “中国人民政治协商会议第十三届全国委员会常务
委员名单” (“Name List for 13th National Committee of the CPPCC Standing Committee”), March 14, 2018,
http://www.cppcc.gov.cn/zxww/2018/03/14/ARTI1521024517368985.shtml; “The CPPCC,”
http://en.cppcc.gov.cn/structure.html.
Figure 16 depicts the CPPCC’s organizational structure. The CPPCC chairperson serves as
China’s most senior official responsible for united front activities. His responsibilities include
outreach to and policy toward Taiwan and the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong
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Kong and Macao.84 The chairperson’s portfolio also includes policies toward ethnic minorities
and religious groups.85
The top body within the CPPCC is the Chairperson’s Council, which includes the chairperson, 24
vice chairpersons, and a Secretary General. Among the current vice chairpersons are two former
Chief Executives of Hong Kong and a former Chief Executive of Macao.86 The Chairperson’s
Council handles the “important routine work” of the CPPCC Standing Committee. The Standing
Committee itself is composed of approximately 300 members and meets about once every two
months.87
The CPPCC’s special committees, like those of the NPC, meet throughout the year. Committee
chairs are al members of the CPC delegation to the CPPCC. Committee vice chairs often include
members of delegations related to the committees’ areas of focus. In the case of the CPPCC’s
Committee on Foreign Affairs, for example, Chair Lou Jiwei, a former Minister of Financ e, is a
member of the CPC delegation. Of the committee’s six vice chairs, five are members of the
“friendship with foreign countries” delegation and one is a special invited Hong Kong
personage.88
Like the NPC, the National Committee of the CPPCC, with almost 3,000 members, meets in full
session once a year in early March. The PRC government and media refer to the nearly
simultaneous NPC and CPPCC meetings as “the two sessions.” China’s state media give the
meetings lavish coverage, often showcasing CPPCC members’ policy proposals and statements.
The CPC is not, however, obliged to act upon those suggestions. The PRC government refers to
CPPCC members as “political advisors.”89

Author Information

Susan V. Lawrence

Specialist in Asian Affairs

Acknowledgments
The author is deeply grateful to CRS Visual Information Specialist Mari Y. Lee, who created all the
graphics in this report.

84 See “Wang Yang Stresses Confidence in Realizing National Rejuvenation,” Xinhua, September 29, 2021, at
http://en.cppcc.gov.cn/2021-09/29/c_665156.htm.
85 See “Wang Yang Attends Closing Gala of Ethnic Minority Art Festival,” Xinhua, September 26, 2021, at
http://en.cppcc.gov.cn/2021-09/26/c_663720.htm.
86 T he National Committee of the CPPCC, “Leadership,” at http://en.cppcc.gov.cn/leadership.html.
87 T he National Committee of the CPPCC, “Standing Committee Meetings,” at http://en.cppcc.gov.cn/
standingcommitteemeetings.html; The National Committee of the CPPCC, “ Chairpersons Council Meetings,” at
http://en.cppcc.gov.cn/chairpersonscouncilmeet ings.html.
88 T he National Committee of the CPPCC, “ 外事委员会” (Committee on Foreign Affairs), at http://www.cppcc.gov.cn/
zxww/newcppcc/wswyh/index.shtml. T he National Committee of the CPPCC,
“中国人民政治协商会议第十三届全国委员会委员名单” (“Name List for the 13th National Committee of the CPPCC”), May 11,
2020, at http://www.cppcc.gov.cn/zxww/2020/05/11/ART I1589179608333237.shtml.
89 “Understanding China’s ‘T wo Sessions’ in a Minute,” Xinhua, March 3, 2021, at http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/
2021-03/03/c_139780076.htm.
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