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1 [1] (January 3, 2025)

handle is hein.crs/goverwm0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service Informing th legi lalave debate si ce 1914 0 Updated January 3, 2025 China Primer: China's Political System Introduction The People's Republic of China (PRC or China) is the only Communist Party-led state among either the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council or the members of the G-20 grouping of major economies. As Congress has intensified its focus on China in the context of U.S.-China strategic competition, Members have increasingly sought to legislate and conduct oversight on matters that require an understanding of the PRC political system. Select features of that system are introduced below. The Party-State The PRC is a Leninist party-state. The Communist Party of China (CPC), also known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is China's dominant political institution. It operates a powerful and expansive bureaucracy and tasks itself with exercis[ing] overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in every part of the country. The Party tasks the government with administration. Interlocking Party and government hierarchies extend down to the level of small towns. At every level and in every institution, Party rank takes precedence over government rank. Xi Jinping, 71, leads the PRC party-state. He has served since 2012 as CPC General Secretary and Chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission, which oversees the Party's armed wing. (The latter comprises active duty and reserve forces of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), plus the People's Armed Police (PAP) and the People's Militia. They all formally and explicitly serve the Party, not the country.) Xi also has served since 2013 as PRC President, a head-of-state position that officially has a minor role in the operations of the PRC government. Xi began his third five- year terms in his Party and state posts in 2022 and 2023. The Communist Party of China The CPC established the PRC on October 1, 1949. Today, the CPC's 99 million-plus members constitute nearly 7% of China's population. All members completed an application and vetting process to join. The Party's apex institution is the Central Committee, led by the General Secretary and including an all-male and all Han-ethnicity 24-person Political Bureau (Politburo) and a more elite, all-male and all-Han 7-person Politburo Standing Committee. The latter is China's top decisionmaking body. (Figure 1.) Figure I. The Communist Party of China (CPC) (left) and Its Politburo Standing Committee (right) LI r -i ~ ~ri SeartiMt fiM~mtrr~ 4(PoI M4Ave~U~ 4~'1~gfl~ey ~h~Mfr~ Ptbo) t IF.rodig nC11Mmittee j±0 1 o aCdu f 4 Dn~cti~n c4 atMtnn¶y LiQtangO Than Leji Wang lHuvn~n Q, Vng Xutmnq L, X Note: CPC Politburo Standing Committee members are listed in rank order; current as of January 1, 2025. Source: CRS graphic by Mari Y. Lee, based on data from the Communist Party of China's news portal, http://cpc.people.com.cn/.