Chinese Communist Research Articles

Research on the Relationship Between Chinese Private Entrepreneurs and Democratization

While the rise of democracy has been attributed to various factors, including the emergence of a capitalist class. This article adopts a theoretical analysis method to delve into the role of private entrepreneurs in China as a potential catalyst for democratization. Drawing on Barrington Moore's theory of "no bourgeoisie, no democracy" and Samuel Huntington's analysis of democratization movements, the paper explores the dynamics between private entrepreneurs and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and analyzes the identity and interests of private entrepreneurs.The study reveals that private entrepreneurs in China maintain close informal connections and share political interests with state officials, indicating an interdependent relationship rather than an antagonistic one. Additionally, the lack of a unified political front and diverging economic interests among private entrepreneurs undermines the potential for class formation and collective action towards democratization. The paper also highlights the integration and cooperation between the CCP and private business owners, dispelling assumptions of discontent and hostility between the two groups. Chinese private entrepreneurs are generally satisfied with the CCP's economic policies, with their primary concern being market competition rather than state policies. This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of the complex dynamics between private entrepreneurs and the CCP in the context of democratization in China.

The Innovation and Development of Scientific Socialism by the New Form of Human Civilisation

The new form of human civilisation is a great creation of socialism with Chinese characteristics and a major civilisational innovation in the path of modernisation led by the Chinese Communist Party. The new form of civilisation of socialism with Chinese characteristics is a milestone on the road to national rejuvenation, the revival of Chinese civilisation in the new era of China, and a new form of civilisation striving to achieve communism. Its emergence and development is a major innovation of scientific socialism, marking the powerful vitality of scientific socialism in China in the 21st century.

The Spirit of Populus Euphratica Is Integrated into The Four Dimensions of College Students' Social Responsibility Education

The Populus euphratica spirit, with the connotation of hard work, unremitting self-improvement, taking root in the frontier and being willing to contribute, is one of the contents of the spiritual lineage of the Chinese Communist Party, the precious spiritual wealth of the Chinese people, the inexhaustible driving force for the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang to forge ahead, and the spiritual guidance for cultivating college students' social responsibility. Integrating Hu Yang spirit into college students' social responsibility education is the educational mission of Hu Yang Spirit, and it is also the embodiment of The Times value of college students accepting social responsibility education and taking the initiative to bear social responsibility. Based on the spirit of Populus euphratica, this paper expounds the social responsibility of college students from four dimensions: the eternal nature of hard work, the will quality of self-improvement, the feelings of home and country rooted in the border area, and the lofty realm of dedication, so as to continuously improve the ideological quality of college students and make them become new people in the era of building Xinjiang, building the motherland, serving the people and serving the society.

The fight metaphor in translation: From patriotism to pragmatism

Abstract The fight metaphors discussed in this article are linguistic expressions of physical conflict, a revolutionary legacy that still lingers in contemporary Chinese political discourse. This article takes a critical cognitive-linguistic approach to fight metaphors in translation, analysing a dataset comprising the Chinese governmental and Communist Party of China’s congressional reports and their official English-language translations from 2004 to 2020. The discussion highlights conceptual metaphor’s representational role and its ideological potential in discourse, and operationalises the English-based metaphor identification procedure (Steen et al. 2010) for Mandarin texts. Drawing on corpus-based evidence, the article argues that fight metaphors in the source texts (STs) legitimise and consolidate Beijing’s dominance of domestic power by generating positive representations and reproducing patriotic ideology. The translations of those metaphors transform Beijing’s image, assertive in the STs, into a non-aggressive one for the international readership. The target texts (TTs) also reproduce favourable representations from the STs to justify China’s unique political system and to satisfy a pragmatic need – that of constructing positive images for the Chinese authority and China internationally.

How the first revolution affected the second: The setback of 1927 for the Chinese Communist Party Revolution in the 1920s

AbstractThe Bolsheviks’ world revolution encountered setbacks in the 1920s. Among the bloodiest of these was the massacre of 1927 when the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) entire central leadership was killed in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (GMD) coup. Existing explanations highlight Moscow’s miscalculation, infighting within the Kremlin, Soviet advisers’ information dilemma, and the CCP leaders’ political inexperience. This article compares the opening stages of the Bolshevik (or Russian) and Chinese Communist Party revolutions to explain why the 1927 setback became a catastrophe. It argues that the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 caused fundamental changes, which thwarted any attempt to replicate the 1917 victory in the post-1917 world. The CCP in 1927 faced three disadvantages that the Bolshevik Revolution had engendered: a misleading myth about the October Revolution, a Bolshevized system of repression created by Soviet advisers to the GMD, and the ‘red scare’ in Japan and British Southeast Asia, which blocked members of the CCP from escaping overseas. This article draws on leaders’ biographical materials to compare the two parties’ learning from foreign revolutions, records in suffering repression, and experiences as overseas refugees. The comparison shows that the Bolsheviks did not face these three disadvantages before 1917.

Regulation of the Legal Profession in China: A Historical Overview

Abstract Understanding a legal system requires understanding of its legal service providers. The Chinese legal system has undergone major transformations since the late nineteenth century, and a series of approaches to regulating China’s lawyers has accompanied those transformations. This article offers a historical overview of those approaches, discussing the regulation of the Chinese legal profession and the foreign lawyers operating in the Chinese environment. The Chinese legal profession has never achieved significant self-regulation or autonomy from the state, and, during the Mao era (1949–1976) it was nearly obliterated. In the late 1970s, China began to rehabilitate its legal profession and create a space in which foreign law firms can operate legally. To a remarkable degree, that effort succeeded: Chinese law firms now operate around the world, and many major international firms operate successfully in China. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, there were signs that China’s leaders were willing to allow the legal system more autonomy and that part of that would comprise liberalizing the regulation of the legal profession. Instead, under Xi Jinping (China’s leader since 2012), political control over the Chinese legal profession has tightened, and foreign firms face new regulations that make it increasingly difficult for them to operate successfully. Going forward, Chinese firms might be supported to the extent they further the Xi regime’s economic aspirations, but they will be subject to closer oversight by the Chinese Communist Party. Foreign firms are no longer considered necessary for China’s economic rise, and they will be able to remain in China only if they are willing to abide by significant new restrictions.

Repenetrating the Rural Periphery: Party Building Under China’s Anti-Poverty Campaign

ABSTRACT Post-Mao reforms ranging from de-collectivization to the abolition of agricultural taxes have eroded the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control over the rural periphery. However, with an agenda to strengthen the CCP’s all-around control over the economy and society, the Xi Jinping era saw a reversal of the long-term trend. We argue that Xi’s high-profile anti-poverty campaign from 2015 to 2020 consisted of massive Party building attempts and served as an important strategy for the Party to repenetrate the rural periphery. Based on in-depth fieldwork, archival research, and secondary information sources, we show that by injecting human and financial resources into poverty regions, the CCP reinvigorated its previously underfunded and demoralized grassroots organs, expanded rural Party member recruitment, and enhanced the Party’s intervention in village affairs. Therefore, despite its seemingly economic nature, Xi’s anti-poverty campaign may lead to the long-lasting effect of Party power consolidation in the countryside. This finding suggests that authoritarian regimes can use campaigns with appealing policy goals to advance broader political agendas and enhance authoritarian resilience.

HUBUNGAN LINTAS SELAT TAIWAN DAN TIONGKOK TERKAIT KETERGANTUNGAN DAGANG PADA PEMERINTAHAN TSAI ING-WEN

Taiwan and China are two countries that have a long history of ideology, government, and territory. The two countries have been at war since 1920 between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang until the ROC government finally moved to the island of Taiwan. Since then, cross-strait relations politically have not been good. On the other hand, trade between the two countries is very good, especially after the formation of the ECFA trade agreement in 2010 which made exports and imports easier. In trade expectations theory, this research analyzes the existence of a “peaceful trade” relationship between the two countries through trade and investment. China has trade dependence on Taiwan in integrated circuit commodities because Taiwan can produce good quality integrated circuits. Based on the principle of dependency, trade relations create “peaceful trade” conditions for cross-strait relations in unstable political conditions. Integrated circuits are also needed by many countries so that Taiwan can control 60% of trade in the global market. Taiwan also has dependence on China for FDI. The value of Taiwan’s FDI to China in 2021 is 46 times higher than integrated circuit exports to China in 2021. This research looks at cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China in ECFA cooperation regarding cross-border trade during the Tsai Ing-wen administration. The qualitative method used in this research took data from the Ministry of Finance of Taiwan. This research analyzes the trade relations between the two countries from exports, imports and FDI as the main findings so that the dependence of the economies of the two countries to date has created conditions for cross-strait relations.

Crafting Utopias for Spiritual Nationhood: Digested India in Contemporary Self-cultivation Practices in China

ABSTRACT This study examines how India – both as a modern nation-state and a symbolic geography – is digested by Chinese self-cultivators to negotiate their belonging in China’s spiritual nationhood, defined as the landscape of belief that corresponds to the geo-body of the nation-state. It follows the practitioners of Oneness (Heyi), one of the most popular Indian new religious movements in China today, for whom such negotiations are riddled with tensions. While Oneness practitioners align themselves with political orthodoxy disseminated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), emphasizing China’s special role as a spiritual leader for humanity, they engage in quasi-religious heterodox practices, risking being labeled an “evil cult” (xie jiao). These frictions occur at the junction of two contrasting notions of spiritual nationhood, one derived from lingxing (spirituality) and the other from jingshen, a secularized notion of spirit that situates the CCP as the sacred center of the polity.

"This Absolutely Is Not a Hui Rebellion!": The Ethnopolitics of Great Nationality Chauvinism in Early Maoist China

Abstract: Through the 1950s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) considered nationality disunity to be a product of "great Han chauvinism." But what happens when history's bad guys are not Han? In parts of China's Northwest, the party identified Hui Muslim elites as the main agents of nationality exploitation and Tibetans as their principal targets. It therefore declared Tibetans of all classes to be victims of nationality exploitation and ordered that "good" Muslims be distinguished from "bad," a task made more urgent by a string of uprisings that engulfed several Muslim-majority areas of the Qinghai-Gansu Highlands from 1949 to 1953. While echoes can be found in the late Qing state's response to Muslim rebellion, this article argues that the CCP's approach to the "Hui question" must be viewed as part of a particular practice of minoritization and a framework for conceptualizing the new socialist nation-state that would leave Muslims and other non-Han communities susceptible to majoritarian-state violence.

The Making of "Evil Tyrant Landlords": A Microhistory of Moralized Class Division during Land Reform in Beijing's Suburbs, 1949

Abstract: Class division represented arguably the most crucial stage of the land reform campaigns mounted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as it not only divided the land but also the political power of rural Chinese society. Based on newly available local archives, this case study of class division during land reform in the suburbs of Beijing argues that the making of "evil tyrant landlords"—and the struggle against them—played a decisive role in conceptualizing the "landlord" as both a figure of Marxist economic exploitation and the morally stigmatized rural elite during land reform and the building of the party-state. After the collapse of the existing rural ruling class, the "struggle against tyrants" movement immediately turned toward enacting formal class division. As a consequence, the discourse of class struggle based on a clear-cut landlord-peasantry dichotomy was, unsurprisingly, allowed by the CCP to infiltrate rural China's post-1949 political culture.

China's Leninist State and strategic relations with the United States: Chiang's KMT in Nanjing Decade and implications for the Chinese Communist Party after 1949

AbstractThis article revisits Chiang Kai‐shek's Kuomintang (KMT) party‐state during the Nanjing Decade (1927–37) of the Republic of China (ROC) and assesses how the actions and ideological propensities of the Nationalist regime affected prewar China's external relations with the United States. While both the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were constituted as Leninist parties in the 1920s, due to the Soviet Union's military and economic aid for Sun Yat‐sen's republican revolution, they had very different political objectives and socioeconomic perspectives on China's state/nation‐building. Consequently, the KMT's and CCP's respective attitudes towards the United States also differed. Though Leninism is an antithesis to Western liberal democracy, it is not inevitable for a Leninist dictatorship to engage in confrontations with Washington, as the central leadership's inclinations and actions would determine how China approaches America. Chiang's Confucian Leninism opened up the friendly ties with the United States in 1928, which eventually consolidated into a strong U.S.‐ROC alliance during WWII and beyond, despite the KMT's autocracy. The essay will contrast briefly with the post‐1949 People's Republic of China (PRC), as the CCP experienced from Mao Zedong's radical Leninism, Deng Xiaoping/Jiang Zemin/Hu Jintao's consultative Leninism, to Xi Jinping's expansionist Leninism today. The evolving CCP positions have also affected the extent of cooperation and hostility between Beijing and Washington and illustrated how the changing attributes of the Chinese Leninist regime are crucial in determining U.S.‐PRC strategic trajectories.

The Appearance of Postcolonialism in the Poetry of East Turkestan

The article discusses the arrival of communism in East Turkestan, which wanted equality for the colonized peoples of the world and pursued an anti-imperial policy, and its influence on Kazakh poetry in China, as well as the manifestations and features of the policy of the Chinese government, forcibly introducing the ideology of denationalization into modern small peoples, into the poetry of East Turkestan , and its influence on Kazakh poetry in China. Chinese communism, which spoke the language of the poor in the society of East Turkistan, like Soviet communism, influenced the culture and literature, traditions and customs of minorities under its neo-colonial perspective through literary texts. In the first part of the article, through a poem by the Kazakh poet Makatan Sharipkan, the penetration of Chinese communism into East Turkestan, which wanted to eliminate class division in society and protect the equality of the poor, is considered. Focusing on the characters of the poem, they paid attention to the semiotic and semantic artistry and originality. In the second part of the article, despite the pressure of the Chinese government, which owns East Turkestan, the manifestations of national values, national identity and originality in modern Kazakh poetry were analyzed through the poems of such poets as Omargazy Aitanuly, Zhenis Kakenuly, Orken Salubay. As part of these studies, analytical forecasts were made for the development of national anti-colonial literature in modern East Turkestan poetry.

RURAL POLICY OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

The report examines rural development of the People's Republic of China and agricultural policy of the Communist Party of China in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries. After the end of World War II, the Chinese Communist Party largely secured its victory over the Kuomintang in the Civil War (1946-1949) thanks to the rural population of China, a predominantly agrarian country at the time. The reforms in the village envisage the implementation of an agrarian reform, expressed in the confiscation of land and means of production from the large landowners and wealthier peasants using hired labor and their distribution among the landless peasants. The first stage of the agrarian reform was carried out until 1952 and was related to the land acquisition of poor peasants. The second stage took place during the First Five-Year Plan (1953-1957) and was related to the collectivization of agriculture. In practice, the agrarian reform ends with the complete cancellation of private ownership of land. At the beginning of the period of the so-called "Great Leap Forward" (1958-1961), cooperatives were transformed into people's communes - basic public organizations in which agricultural and industrial production, trade, education, etc. was developed. After a short period of calm between 1962 and 1965, in May 1966 Mao Zedong launched the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution", whose vanguard were the student-run "Red Guard Squads", the so-called "Hóng Wèibīng". Undoubtedly, the impact of the Cultural Revolution (May 16, 1966 – October 6, 1976) on the PRC in social, political, cultural and economic aspects was very negative. The economy was hit particularly hard in 1967-1968. The death of Mao Zedong on September 9, 1976, the elimination of the far-left Gang of Four, the complete seizure of power by Hua Guofeng on October 7, 1976, and the rehabilitation of Deng Xiaoping, set the stage for major changes in the country's economic management. The beginning of economic reform is associated with the 3rd Plenary Session after the 11th Congress of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, held from December 18 to 22, 1978 in Beijing. The reforms start in the rural areas where 80% of China's population lived at that time and marked the beginning of the new path of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, initially reviving the family form of land management, and then developing channels for the sale of agricultural products, reviving rural enterprises related to the processing of raw materials from the rural economy. First coined by Deng Xiaoping in 1982, the concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics aims to redefine the relations between planning and socialism, and market economy and capitalism. It has preserved institutions of socialism and public ownership while importing sophisticated management experience and advanced market mechanisms from developed countries. The term "socialist market economy" was introduced in 1992 by Jiang Zemin.

Digital Governance in China: Dispute Settlement and Stability Maintenance in the Digital Age

ABSTRACT Drawing on intensive fieldwork conducted in China from 2019 to 2022, this article argues that the Chinese Communist Party is now widely applying a mode of digital governance to contain social grievances and strengthen social stability. Although digital technology itself does help facilitate dispute resolution and stability maintenance by more effectively defusing collective actions and preventing/settling social disputes, the political system and power structure under authoritarianism, to a larger extent, shapes and affects the operation and outcome of digital governance. Even though the party-state is committed to rule by law and promoting a digital governance ‘by law and policy’, the ‘state of exception’ is invoked when it has to rely on digital governance ‘beyond law and policy’ in order to serve the necessity of consolidating its political power and ruling base when social stability is threatened. However, this approach not only fails to construct an accountable state image but may also lead to counterproductive outcomes. The study of digital governance in China adds new elements to the explanation of the condition for a ‘state of exception’ under authoritarianism and also answers why the Chinese government tries to prevent and settle disputes while keeping creating them in the digital age.

Going to Yan’an: The Making of China’s New Ruling Class

ABSTRACT Studies of China’s ruling elites need to be set in the historical context of their formation and expansion, and the resurgence of the notion of “bloodline” (xuetong lun) and its evolution in the last decade into the red-genes theory (hongse jiyin) have increased this need. Yet there is a gap between the scholarly literature in English on China’s ruling elites and academic and non-academic publications in Chinese on the subject, especially on the Yan’an period (late 1935 until early 1948) of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) expansion. Both advocates of the bloodline concept and the red genes theory are connected to Yan’an, as are numerous other contemporary ruling class families. Based on an analysis of Chinese publications, this article examines understudied aspects of the “going to Yan’an” phenomenon during the Anti-Japanese War from a social positioning perspective. Through considering Yan’an as part of social positioning options and how new groups developed there, this article offers a new perspective on the making of China’s post-1949 ruling elites.

Unequal parenting in China: A study of socio-cultural and political effects

This study examines the parental socio-cultural and political effects on parenting practices in China. Based on the China Education Panel Survey, we construct a new typology of parenting styles – intensive, permissive, authoritarian and neglectful – and focus on intensive parenting as a particular mode in which the more privileged families in China use superior cultural and political resources to reinforce their advantages. We show that parents in higher class positions, with higher education and with membership in the leading Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tend to adopt intensive parenting as a means of securing all-round development and obtaining favourable academic achievement for their children. Parenting styles thus reflect a more complicated feature of social stratification in China than in Western societies.

The Issue and Resolution of Grassroots Cadres’ Shirking of Work during the Land Reform and Party Rectification in Lucheng from 1948–1949

Abstract Contrary to the existing academic consensus that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) shifted from strict purges to more lenient “education” in response to paralysis and other negative impacts on its cadre force during the land reform and party rectification, this paper posits that the process of addressing the pessimism, negativity, and work-shirking of cadres was not as simple as “education,” but rather a relatively difficult journey, with historical realities proving to be far richer and more complex. In face of the severe problem of cadre work-shirking during land reform and party rectification, the CCP gradually formed a clear understanding of the situation. While acknowledging mistakes, clarifying responsibilities, and striving to win back the cadres, the party also endeavored to eliminate ideological confusion, delineate right from wrong, and deal decisively with opportunists. For grassroots cadres, this also represented a transformative improvement adapted to revolution and societal development and changes. The resolution of the problem of cadre work-shirking highlights the wisdom and courage of the CCP as it confronted the negative impacts produced by miscalculations during land reform. It also illustrates the party’s internal aspirations and practical needs to vigorously develop production and achieve a smooth transition from “war” to “peace.”

The Influence of Sino-American Relations on the Nanjing National Government During the Second Sino-Japanese War

The Second Sino-Japanese War is an important part of World War II and also a key factor in the formation of the international political situation in the contemporary world. This article focuses on the development and change of Sino-American relations during this period and concretely elaborates on three aspects: the joint fight against the Japanese fascist forces, the struggle between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party in China, and the Soviet Union's intervention in Chinese affairs. In order to summarize the influence of the development and change of Sino-American relations on the Nanjing National Government and the resulting influence on East Asia and the post-war Cold War pattern.

Engendered Perceptions

Abstract This article considers how Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials understood, perceived, and experienced enemy female tewu (special agent) activities and “honey traps” during the early People’s Republic of China. Drawing upon internally circulated party reports and newsletters, speeches of officials, newspapers, films, literature, and dramas, it finds that officials saw enemy female tewu as real threats that had tangible impact on both civilians and men affiliated with the party through honey traps and gendered manipulations. It further argues that narratives of female tewu in official instructions, newspaper reports, and popular cultural works played a larger role in the CCP’s broader efforts to combat and resist enemy espionage than previously understood. This article contextualises existing arguments about CCP counterespionage propaganda. It counterbalances perspectives that suggest the utilisation of these narratives was largely based on irrational wartime sentiments, with the primary aim of increasing the party’s societal control.