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11th National People's Congress
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The 11th National Peoples Congress met for a 5-year term, from 2008 to 2013. It held five annual two week sessions during in this period, there were 2,987 deputies elected to the 11th Congress in 2008, with 2972 in office at the end of the term. The first session of the 11th Congress sat from March 5 to March 18,2008 and it re-elected Hu Jintao as President and Wen Jiabao as Premier. The State Council, Chinas cabinet, went through major restructuring, the second session of the 11th Congress sat from March 5 to March 13,2009. This congress tackled issues such as the global financial crisis, attempted to introduce a new social welfare system, as well as checks. The third session of the 11th Congress sat from March 5 to March 14,2010, the fourth session of the 11th Congress sat from March 5 to March 14,2011. The fifth and final session of the 11th Congress sat from March 5 to March 14,2012, all state leaders were elected from one name ballots. List of members of the 11th National Peoples Congress Official website of the NPC
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National People's Congress
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The National Peoples Congress is the national legislature of the Peoples Republic of China. With 2,987 members in 2013, it is the largest parliamentary body in the world, the NPC is elected for a term of five years. It holds annual sessions every spring, usually lasting from 10 to 14 days, the fourth session of the 12th NPC was held from March 5 to March 16,2016. In theory, the NPC is the highest organ of power in China. However, in practice it usually acts as a stamp for decisions already made by the states executive organs. One of its members, Hu Xiaoyan, told the BBC in 2009 that she has no power to help her constituents and she was quoted as saying, As a parliamentary representative, I dont have any real power. In 2014, the party pledged to unswervingly adhere to the leadership of Chinese Communist Party. Since the 1990s, the NPC has become a forum for mediating policy differences between different parts of the Party, the government, and groups of society, there are mainly four functions and powers of the NPC,1. To amend the Constitution and oversee its enforcement Only the NPC has the power to amend the Constitution, Amendments to the Constitution must be proposed by the NPC Standing Committee or 1/5 or more of the NPC deputies. In order for the Amendments to become effective, they must be passed by 2/3 majority vote of all deputies, to enact and amend basic law governing criminal offences, civil affairs, state organs and other matters 3. To elect and appoint members to the state organs The NPC elects the Chairman, Vice Chairmen, Secretary-General. It also elects the President of the Peoples Republic of China, NPC also appoints the Premier of the State Council and many other crucial officials to the central state organs. The NPC also has the power to remove the officials from the office. The drafting process of NPC legislation is governed by the Organic Law of the NPC and it begins with a small group, often of outside experts, who begin a draft. Over time, this draft is considered by larger and larger groups, by the time the full NPC or NPCSC meets to consider the legislation, the major substantive elements of the draft legislation have largely been agreed to. However, minor wording changes to the draft are often made at this stage, the process ends with a formal vote by the Standing Committee of the NPC or by the NPC in a plenary session. The NPC mainly exists to give sanction to decisions already made at the highest levels of the government. However, it is not completely without influence and it functions as a forum in which legislative proposals are drafted and debated with input from different parts of the government and outside technical experts
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Xi Jinping
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Xi Jinping is the current General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, President of the Peoples Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. As General Secretary, Xi holds a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee. The son of Communist veteran Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping rose through the ranks politically in Chinas coastal provinces, Xi was governor of Fujian from 1999 to 2002, and governor, then party secretary of neighboring Zhejiang province from 2002 to 2007. Following the dismissal of Chen Liangyu, Xi was transferred to Shanghai as party secretary for a period in 2007. Xi joined the Politburo Standing Committee and central secretariat in October 2007, Xi was vice-president from 2008 to 2013 and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 2010 to 2012. Since assuming power, Xi has attempted to legitimize the authority of the Communist Party by introducing far-ranging measures to enforce party discipline and he initiated an unprecedented and far-reaching campaign against corruption, leading to the downfall of prominent incumbent and retired officials. Xi has also imposed further restrictions over civil society and ideological discourse, Xi Jinping was born in Beijing on 15 June 1953. After the founding of the Communist state in 1949, Xis father held a series of posts, including propaganda chief, vice-premier, Xis father is from Fuping County, Shaanxi, and Xi could further trace his patrilineal descent from Xiying in Dengzhou, Henan. He is the son of Xi Zhongxun and his wife Qi Xin. When Xi was age 10, his father was purged from the Party and sent to work in a factory in Luoyang, Henan. In May 1966, Xis secondary education was cut short by the Cultural Revolution, Xi was age 15 when his father was jailed in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution. Without the protection of his father, Xi was sent to work in Yanchuan County, Shaanxi and he later became the Party branch secretary of the production team, leaving that post in 1975. When asked about this experience later by Chinese state television, Xi recalled, and when the ideals of the Cultural Revolution could not be realised, it proved an illusion. From 1979 to 1982, Xi served as secretary for his fathers former subordinate Geng Biao and this gained Xi some military background. In 1985, as part of a Chinese delegation to study American agriculture, he visited the town of Muscatine and this trip, and his stay with an American family, has been considered influential in his views on the United States. Xi joined the Communist Youth League in 1971 and the Communist Party of China in 1974, in 1982, he was sent to Zhengding County in Hebei as deputy Party Secretary of Zhengding County. He was promoted in 1983 to Secretary, becoming the top official of the county, Xi subsequently served in four provinces during his regional political career, Hebei, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. Xi held posts in the Fuzhou Municipal Party Committee and became the president of the Party School in Fuzhou in 1990, in 1997, Xi was named an alternate member of the 15th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
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Communist Party of China
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The Communist Party of China is the founding and ruling political party of the Peoples Republic of China. It was founded in 1921, chiefly by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, the CPC is currently the worlds second largest political party with a membership of 88.76 million as of 2016. It also controls the worlds largest armed force, the Peoples Liberation Army, the highest body of the CPC is the National Congress, convened every fifth year. The partys leader holds the offices of General Secretary, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, through these posts the party leader is the countrys paramount leader. The current party leader is Xi Jinping, elected at the 18th National Congress, the CPC is still committed to communist thought and continues to participate in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties each year. The official explanation for Chinas economic reforms is that the country is in the stage of socialism. The planned economy established under Mao Zedong was replaced by the socialist market economy, the CPC has its origins in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, during which radical ideologies like Marxism and anarchism gained traction among Chinese intellectuals. Other influences stemming from the Bolshevik revolution and Marxist theory inspired the Communist Party of China, Li Dazhao was the first leading Chinese intellectual who publicly supported Leninism and world revolution. In contrast to Chen Duxiu, Li did not renounce participation in the affairs of the Republic of China, both of them regarded the October Revolution in Russia as groundbreaking, believing it to herald a new era for oppressed countries everywhere. The CPC was modeled on Vladimir Lenins theory of a vanguard party, Study circles were, according to Cai Hesen, the rudiments. Several study circles were established during the New Culture Movement, the founding National Congress of the CPC was held on 23–31 July 1921. With only 50 members in the beginning of 1921, the CPC organization, while it was originally planned to be held in Shanghai French Concession, police officers interrupted the meeting on 3 July. Because of that, the congress was moved to a tourist boat on South Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, only 12 delegates attended the congress, with neither Li nor Chen being able to attend. Chen sent a representative to attend the congress. The resolutions of the called for the establishment of a communist party. The communists dominated the left wing of the KMT, a party organized on Leninist lines, when KMT leader Sun Yat-sen died in March 1925, he was succeeded by a rightist, Chiang Kai-shek, who initiated moves to marginalize the position of the communists. Fresh from the success of the Northern Expedition to overthrow the warlords, Chiang Kai-shek turned on the communists, ignoring the orders of the Wuhan-based KMT government, he marched on Shanghai, a city controlled by communist militias. Although the communists welcomed Chiangs arrival, he turned on them, Chiangs army then marched on Wuhan, but was prevented from taking the city by CPC General Ye Ting and his troops
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United Front (PRC)
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The United Front in the Peoples Republic of China is a popular front of the legally permitted parties in the country, led by the Communist Party of China. Besides the CPC, it includes eight minor parties and the All-China Federation of Industry and it is managed by the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Its current department head is Sun Chunlan, the United Front is represented together with other mass organizations such as trade unions, womens and youth organizations, minorities etc. in the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference. The United Front holds no real power independent of the CPC and its leaders are mostly selected by the Communist Party of China, or are themselves CPC members. The member parties which exist are almost completely subservient to the CPC, thus, China is a de facto one-party state. However, the United Front parties have representation in the National Peoples Congress. Seymour, Chinas Satellite Parties, Routledge, ISBN 978-0873324120 Official website of the United Front Work Department, Central Committee of CPC
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Wu Bangguo
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Wu Bangguo is a retired high-ranking politician in the Peoples Republic of China. He was the Chairman and Party secretary of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress from 2003 to 2013 and he ranked second in official rankings of state and party leaders of China. A native of Anhui, Wu is an engineer by profession. Wu was born in Feidong County, Anhui and he entered Tsinghua University in 1960, majoring in electron tube engineering at the Department of Radio Electronics, where he graduated in 1967. He subsequently was employed as a worker and technician at Shanghais No.3 Electronic Tube Factory and he would eventually go on to lead the factory as its party secretary. In 1978 he was assigned to become the deputy manager of Shanghai Electronic Elements Company, between 1981 and 1983 he worked as the deputy secretary of Shanghai Meters, Instruments and Telecommunications Bureau. Wus work in electronics companies earned him a tenure in the upper echelons of power. Between 1985 and 1991, Wu was elevated to Deputy secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee, and subsequently as CPC party chief of Shanghai, the citys first-in-charge. As Shanghais political and economic stature grew due to reforms, Wu gained a seat on the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, Chinas ruling council. He continued as Vice-Premier under Zhu Rongji, and served in the role until the 2003 National Peoples Congress. At the 16th Party Congress in November 2002, Wu entered the highest power elite in the country, at the 11th National Peoples Congress, he was re-elected as Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee on 15 March 2008. In his capacity as NPCSC chair, Wu delivers an annual address each year at the National Peoples Congress sessions in March and these speeches have always noted that China will not adopt multiparty democracy, separation of powers, or a federal system. He also stated that the Central Government supported Hong Kongs development of democracy, although the remarks were left open to interpretation, they generated significant controversy in Hong Kong, with pro-democracy politicians calling it a challenge on the autonomy of the territory. On 16 July 2012, Wu attended the ceremony of Shenzhou 9. Shanghai clique Wu Bangguo biography at China Vitae
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