Party Congress Research Articles

Urban Governance Research in China (2012-2022): Progress and Reflections

Since the 18th Party Congress, urban governance has gained more and more academic attention. By combing through the Chinese urban governance research literature in the last decade (2012-2022), this paper aims to describe the current status of research in this field and point out the development direction of future research. After screening 519 core Chinese journals, a comprehensive analysis of qualitative and quantitative methods was conducted with the help of the software Cite Space. The results of the analysis show that, in terms of the construction of "invisible academy" and academic community, the participation in the field of urban governance research is on the rise, but the construction of cooperative network of researchers and research institutions needs to be improved. In terms of research themes, the number of theoretical and motivational studies has increased significantly and accounted for a large number of studies, while value-level studies have received less attention and have limited content; in terms of research types, there are more exploratory and descriptive studies and fewer explanatory studies. Overall, during this decade, the academic community of urban governance research has been gradually improved, the research themes have been refined, and the research types have been enriched. However, there is still a need to further improve the value-level and interpretive research on urban governance and to enhance interdisciplinary communication.

No Turning Back? Assessing China’s Intent to Use Force to Resolve the Taiwan Issue After 2018

This paper collects and analyzes the speeches of top Chinese leaders on Taiwan, the relevant remarks of Taiwan-related ministries and commissions, and important documents concerning Taiwan. It takes the visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan as an example to observe China’s current policy toward Taiwan and its intent to employ force. This paper argues that although the outside world has repeatedly emphasized that “Taiwan is the most dangerous place on earth” and that China will invade Taiwan by force, peaceful unification is still the main axis of its strategy toward Taiwan. Military force is an avenue for China to force unification and prevent international interference in the Taiwan issue. The results of our analysis of Taiwan-related remarks by top Chinese leaders and relevant ministries and commissions are also highly consistent with the political report of the 20th Party Congress, and there are two noteworthy points. First, China has linked “opposing independence” with “opposing interference by external forces” and the principle of “never renouncing the right to use force over Taiwan.” From Beijing’s perspective, the Taiwan issue is no longer one simply involving cross-strait relations but is embedded in China’s domestic national rejuvenation and the strategic competition between itself and the United States. Moreover, Xi Jinping is the most critical factor affecting cross–strait relations. As a strong leader with a historic mission, how Xi regards the Taiwan issue will affect both the destiny of Taiwan and the security of the entire Asia-Pacific region.

Errata: "Stability in the Taiwan Strait after the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party"

Errata: "Stability in the Taiwan Strait after the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party"

Chinese Global Orders: Socialism, Tradition, and Nation in China–Russia Relations

While many use rational IR theory to explain Chinese foreign policy behavior, this paper follows global IR to employ interpretivist theory to examine how Chinese elites understand their country’s role in the world. In particular, it explores the Chinese global order ideas of socialism, tradition, and nation through a comparative analysis of how they work in China–Russia relations, especially after China’s 20th Communist Party Congress in 2022. The first section presents a critical analysis of the realist understanding of the China–Russia–U.S. strategic triangle. It argues that the socialist concept of “united front work” better explains Chinese (and Russian) policy in terms of short-term “tactical triangles.” To probe China’s long-term global order ideas, the second section explores narratives of tradition to examine the concentric circles model of global order seen in Chinese tianxia and Russian Eurasianism. To understand these competing Russocentric and Sinocentric global orders, the third section explores how each country’s official historiography highlights narratives of the nation and especially how national rejuvenation requires correcting the “national humiliation” of lost territories. Rather than see these narratives in a linear chronological history — i.e., from tradition to socialism to nationalism — this paper considers how they overlap in socialism, tradition, and nation, a non-linear dynamic triad of global order ideas. It concludes first that further research is necessary to examine the interrelation of these three narratives: while nation and tradition are often employed to support the overarching narrative of socialism in recent years, this could certainly change. The conclusion then argues that while these narratives may be coherent theoretically, they have not been very successful in achieving Beijing and Moscow’s foreign policy objectives.

Xi Jinping’s Consolidation of Power at the 20th Party Congress: Implications for Chinese Foreign Policy

The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October 2022 secured Xi Jinping’s third term as General Secretary and secured a team of supporters amid socioeconomic woes and increasingly hostile global circumstances. While leadership matters in all political systems, it matters much more in totalitarian and authoritarian ones. Political leaders in democracies are constrained by electoral cycles, term limits, and approval ratings, but the leaders of the PRC’s single-party system that emphasizes discipline, hierarchy, and democratic centralism operate relatively unchecked by bureaucracy, opposition forces, or public opinion. Its leaders possess the ultimate decision-making authority in national security and strategic policies (Zhao, 2022, p. 5).The consolidation of Xi’s power has far-reaching implications for China’s foreign policy. As a feared, sycophantically revered, and ruthless emperor confident in his country’s military power and economic clout, Xi feels equipped to accomplish his mission of making China great again. He has also inherited a pervasive insecurity of pushback from Western powers that threatens his authoritarian rule. He has therefore upheld the security of the regime beyond Deng Xiaoping and his decades of prioritizing growth. Proactively stifling any opposition to his rule and cracking down on any hint of a “color revolution” at home in connection with foreign forces, Xi has strengthened the military and reorganized the economy in preparation for a possible showdown with the United States. He has required Chinese diplomats to act as “wolf warriors” in diplomatic battles and fight criticisms of the regime even at the cost of escalating international tensions. While his team of supporters has maximized his power to implement his policies, this has also prevented his colleagues from counseling against any mistakes they may anticipate or discover. Intentionally or not, he has minimized opportunities to correct his mistakes and increased the stakes and the risks they present, raising the potential for his country to become embroiled in a foreign adventure of no return.

Study on Digital Economy for Rural Relative Poverty Governance in Anhui Province

Since the 18th Party Congress, the Chinese government has actively promoted anti-poverty strategies and achieved the goal of poverty eradication as scheduled. However, poverty governance is not over, and the problem of relative poverty still exists. By analyzing the development of digital economy and the current situation of rural relative poverty in Anhui Province, this paper further explores the theoretical mechanism of digital economy for rural relative poverty governance. Finally, four measures are proposed: continuously increasing the construction of digital technology infrastructure, developing entrepreneurship support policies, promoting a fair social income distribution system, and actively promoting the urbanization process, so as to establish a long-term poverty alleviation mechanism to address relative poverty.

Population Mobility and Migration in Villages/Villages in the Context of Rural Revitalization

The rural revitalization strategy, since its introduction in the report of the 19th Party Congress in 2017, has been a key concern for professionals from all walks of life, and in the development of the revitalization strategy, China has experienced a long period of changing population movement nationwide. Facing the development trend and environmental development problems in China nowadays, we should discuss and solve the problem immediately. First of all, this project has obtained many development problems faced in the implementation of rural revitalization from various platforms and personal resources, and plans to carry out in-depth and solution of the problems from two aspects: fieldwork and desktop research and discussion, respectively. This project will reflect the problems in rural revitalization more comprehensively and give the country and government more quality solutions. Secondly, we analyze and summarize the situation of rural revitalization at home and abroad, and summarize the differences to find and propose excellent suggestions for improvement.

북한의 시대별 권력구조(당을 중심으로) 변화에 대한 연구

The above paper is a party-centered research and analysis of the power structure of each era in North Korea. North Korea does not seem to maintain its normal state in the North’s special political environment, which actually leads to the third succession of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, with the 8th Party congress held in 2021 in the Notth. It can be said that the Kim Il-sung era, when North Korea was founded, was some what close to the socialist state centered on the party, but the importance of the party was recognized due to the military-first politics during the Kim Jong-il era, but its role was very weak. But forming the third-generation hereditary state to Kim Jong-un, whose origins are unknown in any country, the North’s leader is trying to rule the countty today by a system based on a party-state power structure based on patriotism with in the or bit of a normal socialist state. It can be tnought that the 8th Party Congress held in North Korea in 2021 represents that. There fore, this paper predicts the relationship hetween the North Korea in 2021 represents that. There fore, this paper predicts the relationship between the North Korea party, government, and military durint North Korea’s three hereditary governance and how they will change around Rodongdang through review of existing reseaech papers, analysis of recent situation in North Korea, and analysis of nuclear power plant data related to North Korea.

Sounding Out Stories: A Critical Analysis of The Prince, How To Become A Dictator, The King of Kowloon, Three Narrative Podcasts on Contemporary China

It’s unusual and welcome to see not one, but three, well-produced narrative podcasts made in the West about China. Hosted by female journalists with a Chinese background, all provide strong context on Chinese history and politics but focus essentially on an individual: The King of Kowloon (produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) memorialises an eccentric graffiti artist called Tsang Tsou-choi, his art seen in the context of Hong Kong’s shrinking democracy. Both The Prince (by The Economist) and How To Become A Dictator (by The Telegraph) zero in on Xi JinPing, President of the People’s Republic of China, their release coinciding with the fifth annual Communist Party Congress in October 2022. There are many ways to ruin a narrative podcast. Unlike chatcasts, technical quality matters: intimacy, that cherished currency of podcasting, starts with a close mic. The deployment of voice, actuality, music and archival sound in the service of story makes a big difference to how engaged listeners will be. Underpinning all of this are the script and narrative structure. The host should be relatable, as a human being and in connection to the podcast theme. The script also has to link, foreshadow and clarify the various story elements, while the narrative arc works at both a micro level, providing a satisfying journey within each episode, and a macro, whereby thorny details and bum steers are explored, eliminated or developed, and by the end of the series, finally resolved—or at least exhausted. This article is an in-depth critique of these three narrative podcasts, analysing aspects from production/structure and craft/sound design to editorial/research, hosting, script and storytelling.

Документи Ф. П. 4 Держархіву Хмельницької області про освітню діяльність Кам’янець- Подільського педінституту у роки хрущовської «відлиги»

The purpose of the article is to show, on the basis of archival documents, the main directions of the educational process in the Kamianets-Podilskyi Pedagogical Institute, in particular the success of students, the state of educational and methodological work and labor discipline, the organization of independent work, practices, and state exams. Th e methodologi- cal basis of the research is the principles of historicism, systematicity and comprehensiveness, and problem-chronological and diachronic methods. Th e scientifi c novelty of the publication lies in the fact that, for the fi rst time, the educational activities of this institution of higher educa- tion have been analyzed based on archival materials of the foundation of the party organization of the Kamianets-Podilskyi Pedagogical Institute. Conclusions. One of the priorities in the ac- tivities of the party organization was the optimal arrangement of the educational process, which was far from easy since when organizing the educational process, the university management had to take into account directives, decisions of party congresses, and plenums and, accordingly, could not go beyond the offi cially announced party course on construction of communism. In addition, corrections had to be made, considering that students were mobilized for harvesting in the region’s collective farms and state farms in the fi rst months of the academic year. Work was carried out to improve teaching methods, in particular, the institute introduced programmed learning, practiced mutual visits, discussions at meetings of departments of open classes, etc. Measures were taken to bring the activity of scientifi c and pedagogical workers closer to the practice of school work and to improve the professional training of students; various types of visualization and technical teaching tools began to be used more intensively, more attention was paid to the organization of independent work and pedagogical practice of students, which demonstrated that they had good theoretical training, necessary skills, and abilities to organize educational work at school.

Xi Jinping's Pursuit of Absolute Security

Xi Jinping's Pursuit of Absolute Security Xia Ming (bio) On October 22, 2022, the Twentieth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded with an endorsement to Xi Jinping's third term. It shattered the key legacy of Deng Xiaoping on political reform, namely the abolition of lifelong tenure for leading cadres in 1980. Under Xi's watch, a constitutional coup was completed. It started with its 2013 "top-down design" symbolizing a "superstructural" reaction against the dynamic economic base, followed by the creation of the Central National Security Commission (CNSC, established in January 2014) and the revision of the state constitution to remove the term limit for the state president and vice-president. At the crowning moment of the Twentieth Party Congress, Xi had snatched all important powers into his hand and extended his dictatorship into an indefinite future, from the Chairman of Everything to the Chairman of Everything Forever. The public humiliation of his predecessor Hu Jintao who dutifully handed all his power to Xi can be viewed symbolically as Napoleon's coronation: Instead of being bestowed the crown by the Pope, Napoleon crowned himself. However, this dramatic change of course in China's political development was not without strong headwinds. While taking up the mantle, Xi inherited a flagging economy: in 2012, China's gross domestic product (GDP) growth dropped below 8 percent, henceforth, it has been on the skid. Considering under the Market-Leninism, the legitimacy of the communist rule relied heavily upon its economic performance, Xi's dismal track record on the economy, especially both the 2015 stock market crash in China and the 2017 trade war with Trump, could undermine Xi's power base. But what explained his reversal of fortune when he triumphed in a "winner-takes-all" manner and assembled a team filled with all his yes-men? In this essay, I would like to propose an explanation: through the top-down institutional design, Xi and his proteges had successfully [End Page 331] engineered a paradigm shift in Chinese governance, namely, a developmental state metamorphosizing into a security state. Security takes precedence over everything. The Twentieth Party Congress Political Report conspicuously highlighted this new mantra: "security" appeared 91 times ("national security" 29 times), and "stability," another code word for strong-handed statism in the Communist jargon, appeared 20 times. "Security" replaced "growth"; "Struggle" (22 times) diluted "reform." The goal of Xi's envisioned national security system is to "build a comprehensive, well-linked and interactive, three-dimensional and efficient national security protection system." It has the following features. Security Is Comprehensive Xi's comprehensive understanding of security has encompassed food, energy, supply chain, cyberspace, political ideology, regime, and overseas Chinese interests. The last category should be considered with the principle of jus sanguinis in China's nationality law; therefore, overseas Chinese could be the target of long-armed transnational law enforcement. For example, although the Hong Kong publisher Gui Minhai had been naturalized into Swedish citizenship, he was captured in Thailand and later transferred back to China for a trial for publishing a book entitled Xi Jinping and His Seven Lovers. In 2020 he was sentenced to 10 years in jail without being granted any consular service from Sweden. Xi's regime has asserted its sovereignty over the Internet; therefore, it does deem any critical speeches and oppositional activities outside of China as subversive to its national security, which can automatically apply its domestic security law and criminal law. Security Is Indivisible Since Deng set China's foreign policy to "hide the light and bide the time," China had kept a low profile to avoid taking a leadership role or confronting the United States in a major crisis. In 2010, then state councilor Dai Bingguo outlined a defensive nationalism by focusing on China's three core national interests: stability of Communist leadership and socialist system; sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national unification; and sustainable economic growth. Entering Xi's era, China has become more aggressive, and its core national interests have expanded [End Page 332] omnidirectionally and are more explicit. In particular, any criticism of the Communist regime and its leaders (Xi is the inviolable one...

Xi's Global Campaign for Chinese Security

Xi's Global Campaign for Chinese Security Carla P. Freeman (bio) Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, China's leader Xi Jinping has frequently invoked the Chinese idiom that in crisis, there is opportunity (CGTN 2020). In 2022, even as China continued its COVID state of emergency, Xi Jinping doubled down on promoting China as a source of answers to the world's security challenges. Making a case that the US-led international order lacks the capacity to address current international threats and is also a source of instability, Xi began a global campaign to assert that China had an alternative and better vision for managing global security. Beijing has yet to provide many details about what it has in mind for a new global security order. What can be inferred is that China perceives the current fraught international environment as a chance to win support for security norms that align more closely with its national capabilities and preferences. Beijing's principal vehicle in this undertaking is a "Global Security Initiative" (GSI), introduced by Xi at the Boao Forum in April 2022 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022). The initiative is purposively bold: as then Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi elaborated soon after Xi's roll out of the concept, it promises nothing less than "a new approach to eliminating the root causes of international conflicts" (Wang 2022). A GSI concept paper published by China's Foreign Ministry in February 2023 repeats this phrase, adding that "China stands ready to work with all countries and peoples…to create a better future for mankind …" (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2023). It remains to be seen if the GSI concept will itself win China significant international followership as it takes form. Chinese media reports that 80 countries have already endorsed it (Global Times Editors 2023). Public commentary in non-aligned countries suggests, however, that there are concerns the GSI could be a new bloc in the making (Giri 2022). What is clear is that Chinese arguments that something needs to [End Page 313] be done to improve global security resonate with large swathes of the global public (Yiu 2022). Beijing has almost certainly launched the GSI with multiple policy outcomes in mind. At minimum, the GSI provides a framework for China to amplify its preferred narrative that the US-led international environment is deteriorating and strengthens perceptions that China is a willing provider of global security (Sun 2022). At the time it was launched, Beijing may have seen the GSI as an opportunity to buffer China from criticism on a number of fronts. First, that its own zero COVID policies had contributed to the global economic slowdown; at minimum, it has used narratives critical of Western handling of not just international security but also the pandemic to win support for the GSI in the developing world. Second, the GSI may also have been timed to counter rhetoric that Beijing sought to maximize its opportunities in the Ukraine crisis by maintaining an ambiguous position on Russia's invasion. In early 2023, Beijing associated the GSI with a number of high profile diplomatic initiatives, including a position paper enumerating principles for a political settlement of the Ukraine war and a key role in brokering a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Recent developments also offer evidence that the GSI could be operationalized as a channel for the export of Chinese technologies and techniques China uses to implement its domestic security goals (Freeman and Stephenson 2022b). As this suggests, the development of a new international security architecture with Chinese characteristics is about much more than just buttressing Chinese hard power or diplomatic influence: it is about enhancing a comprehensive vision of Chinese security that encompasses the entire state, domestic society, and, to an increasing degree, the international community as well. 2012–2021 Comprehensive National Security with Xi Jinping Characteristics Securing China has been a dominant theme of Xi Jinping's leadership since he succeeded Hu Jintao a decade ago. A number of institutional changes and new policies that followed the 18th Party Congress and the 2018 Two Sessions made clear that, under Xi's leadership, China would pursue a security strategy that...

DEVELOPING HIGH-QUALITY HUMAN RESOURCES IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING: POLICIES, LEGAL PROVISIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SOME SOLUTIONS

DEVELOPING HIGH-QUALITY HUMAN RESOURCES IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING: POLICIES, LEGAL PROVISIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SOME SOLUTIONS

Exploring the path of cultivating sound personality of high school students in high school ideology and politics class

Since the 18th Party Congress, the construction of spiritual civilization in the education system has received great attention, and the establishment of moral education has become a fundamental task of education. As a key course for implementing the fundamental task of cultivating moral character, high school ideology and politics classes have significant value for cultivating sound personality of high school students. It is urgent to organically integrate personality education into high school ideology and politics classes, and it is imperative to play an active role of high school ideology and politics teachers in personality education, and it is significant to gather the joint efforts of school, family and society to carry out personality education.

Constructing the average worker’s family budget after Stalin

The article looks at published “average” family budget studies in the Khrushchev era following the February 1956 Twentieth Party Congress and the Soviet government’s pledge to more fully meet the population’s material needs. Despite being portrayed as objective reflections of reality, harnessing the expert authority of statisticians and the power of numbers, as this article shows, these studies in fact featured highly idealized constructions of family composition and economic practices, as well as gendered assumptions about men’s and women’s contributions to the normative household budget. At the same time, published “average” family budget studies played an important pedagogical role during this time, helping to explain the benefits of shifts away from Stalin-era policies, such as encouraging Stakhanovite overproduction and bestowing routine retail price cuts on the population, and toward more abstract but, as it was argued, more tangibly beneficial policies like workers’ “invisible earnings” from the free or highly subsidized benefits of the Soviet welfare state.

The need to know. Information gathering and evaluation in Communist Party organizations of Hungarian universities (1948-1956)

ABSTRACT Based on the example of university party organizations, the article discusses the function of information scarcity in the daily work of lower-level functionaries in the Stalinist period of Hungarian state socialism (1948–56). In order to implement party policies efficiently, the functionaries of the Hungarian Workers’ Party needed to acquire information about the goals, possible methods and evaluative frameworks of their tasks and their social environment. The article argues that the uncertainty caused by the scarcity of reliable information from and about society could have been reduced by consistent orientation from the higher party levels. In the first years of open sovietization, the party leadership successfully presented itself as the only true and all-knowing guide towards communism, which provided stability when the Stalinist style of discipline, work and practice was introduced into the organizational culture. However, the contradictory and watered-down central interpretations about the modifications of the Soviet model during the New Course and after the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union proved to be insufficient to make sense of the party policies’ twists and turns and made functionaries unable to deal with the new challenges. The perception of not being adequately informed resulted in a gradual loss of loyalty towards the actual party leadership by the eve of the revolution of 1956. Elaborating functionaries’ confusion in the context of universities also shows how the control of students slipped through the party’s fingers and provides further explanation of why universities became hotbeds of opposition and resistance against the communist regime.

시진핑 3기 정부의 대한반도 정책 – 20차 당대회 이후를 중심으로 –

시진핑 3기 정부의 대한반도 정책 – 20차 당대회 이후를 중심으로 –

Stalinist political spectacle and the defeat of the opposition: The Fifteenth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1927

AbstractThe Fifteenth Party Congress of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) took place in December 1927. It brought to an end the inner‐Party struggle of the Soviet Communist Party by confirming the expulsion of Leon Trotsky, Gregorii Zinoviev and other oppositionists from Party and government posts. The Fifteenth Party Congress marked the domination of Iosif Stalin and his allies over the whole Party and the beginning of Stalinist politics which flourished in the following decades. Despite extensive scholarly interest in this crucial Party congress in the history of the early Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party, little has been studied on the organisational aspect of the Fifteenth Congress. This article examines the process of establishing the organisational and institutional mechanisms ahead of the Fifteenth Congress, which enabled Stalin and the Central Committee to unanimously affirm the correctness of the Party line. It also explores how Stalin attained legitimacy as the Party leader during the pre‐Fifteenth Congress discussion and how it was presented at the Fifteenth Congress. Furthermore, this article demonstrates how the ‘memory’ of the Fifteenth Congress was constructed and how the Party leaders institutionalised the meaning of the Fifteenth Congress. Through these examinations, this article will shed fresh light on the Fifteenth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party and will contribute to the study of the rise of Stalinism.

Partikongressens form

Solemn voices echo through the speakers, the clatter of glass and bursts of laughter give way to loud applause. These are some of the sounds captured on the gramophone recording of the Social Democrats' annual congress in 1969. The Party Congress was an important arena for political thinking in 20th century Sweden, yet we know relatively little about how it functioned. This article analyses the form of the party congress by studying sound recordings from the Social Democratic Party, The Swedish Association of Christian Social Democrats, Social Democratic Women in Sweden, and the Communist party, between 1968 and 1978. What was going on at these meetings and how can audio data supplement the understanding provided by the texts of the minutes?The party congress was a nexus for party political discourse. Decisive decisions were made, ideas were exchanged, and lines of conflict were drawn. Precisely for this reason, historical research has repeatedly consulted the congress minutes to study the circulation and development of political ideas. However, the minutes provide a limited understanding of the form of the meeting itself. The preserved audio recordings can instead contribute to our understanding of the arrangement of the meetings; who was allowed to speak for long and who was interrupted. Automated signal processing offers the possibility of exploring this rich material on a large scale. It also enables granular inspection and curated close listening. In this way, the digital analysis methods of today enable research to move along the scale of the data set. By bringing together machine processing and human listening, it is possible to gain new insights into the Party Congress and better understand one of the central environments in which Swedish social democracy took shape.

Political cycle and effective corporate tax rate: evidence from China

ABSTRACT This research aims to investigate the changing of effective corporate tax rate during the political cycle of Provincial Party Congresses with the data from Chinese industrial businesses from 1998 to 2009. The study shows that the effective tax rate for enterprises fluctuates with the political cycle of Provincial Party Congresses. The effective tax rate, in particular, tends to rise in the year before and during the Provincial Party Congresses, then decline year after year. Further study reveals variation in the impact of political cycles on officials and enterprises with various characteristics; for example, the impact of the corporation effective tax rate is more obvious for male officials, private firms, and so on. At the same time, the paper does not find a significant age ‘ceiling effect’ among prefecture-level officials in China. And the regional rule of law construction does not have a significant effect on the political cyclicality of corporate effective tax rates, whereas the political cyclicality of effective corporate tax rates is more pronounced in regions with higher government investment intensity. Finally, this paper puts forward policy recommendations such as improving officials’ promotion and assessment mechanisms and optimizing the government’s policy implementation.