The Chinese Communist Party

Abstract

Before looking in detail at the three main apparats it is worth devoting a few words to some of the more general issues concerning the network of power in China. Like other communist-party states, China can be studied in terms of the classic duality of the Party and the state and their interrelationship. The general view is that the Party directs the administrative state machinery, but China’s legacy from the guerrilla war has meant that the distinction between the Party and the state has been blurred and that, on occasions, the personnel of the two apparats has been identical. This has caused confusion about the division of responsibility between policy formulation and implementation. Another important inheritance is the level of military involvement in the political system — an involvement which is different from that of the military in the Soviet Union, where it acts as a pressure group pursuing ‘professional’ interests. In China, many people at the top levels in the decision-making process have held concurrent civilian and military posts, making it difficult to talk of a ‘military interest at work’. Also, unlike in the Soviet Union, the military plays a large part in the activities of the CCP at all levels, not just at the centre.1