China’s Political Order Under Xi Jinping: Concepts and Perspectives

This article argues that the essence of China’s neo-socialism under Xi Jinping is a CPC-led (Communist Party of China) ranking-stratified political order. This political order diverges not only from Western democratic values, but also from the general reform trend of the Deng Xiaoping era. During the 1980s, Deng promoted the separation of “Party and government” and “government and business” in an attempt to avoid the CPC “taking on and intervening in everything”. The article details how this reform trend has been reversed under Xi Jinping. Instead of notions of separation, the dominant slogan is “bidirectional entry and cross appointment”. Thus, in many localities, the Party secretary also serves as chairman of the local national people’s congress and in state-owned companies, the Party secretary duplicates as chairman of the board. The article also shows how the Party has strengthened its authority and centralised power in the hands of Xi Jinping. The result is the fusion of Party and state or what can be called the transition from Party-state to state-Party.