Leader of the Chinese Communist Party
The leader of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is the highest-ranking official and head of the Chinese Communist Party. Since 1982, the General Secretary of the Central Committee is considered the party's leader. Since its formation in 1921, the leader's post has been titled as Secretary of the Central Bureau, Chairman, and General Secretary.
By custom the party leader has either been elected by the CCP Central Committee or the Politburo. There were several name changes until Mao Zedong finally formalized the office of Chairman of the Central Committee in 1945. Since 1982, the CCP National Congress and its 1st CC Plenary Session has been the main institutional setting in which the CCP leadership are elected. From 1992 onwards, every party leader has been elected by a 1st CC Plenary Session. In the period 1928–45 the CCP leader was elected by conference, meetings of the Central Committee or by decisions of the Politburo. The last exception to this rule is Jiang Zemin, who was elected at the 4th Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Currently, to be nominated for the office of general secretary, one has to be a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, the top decision body.
Despite breaching the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, several individuals have been de facto leaders of the CCP without holding formal positions of power. Wang Ming was briefly in charge in 1931 after Xiang Zhongfa was jailed by Kuomintang forces, while Li Lisan is considered to have been the real person in-charge for most of Xiang's tenure. Mao was reckoned as the CCP's actual leader from the Long March onward before formally becoming Chairman in 1943.
Beginning in the 1980s, the CCP leadership desired to prevent a single leader from rising above the party, as Chairman Mao had done. Accordingly, the post of CCP Chairman was abolished in 1982. Most of its functions were transferred to the revived post of General Secretary. Deng Xiaoping is the last and only CCP official to become de facto leader of the CCP and paramount leader of China despite having never served as chairman or general secretary. His highest post was Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Terminology
The CCP constitution refers to "leaders" of the party generally, but does not specify a particular office holder as the highest ranking official of the party. Under the current party constitution, the General Secretary exercises leadership and authority over the party by nature of their duty to convene meetings of the politburo and its standing committee and their duty to preside over the work of the party's secretariat.In recent years, western media's reference to the Leader of the CCP generally means the General Secretary, highest ranking party official exercising formal authority over political affairs of the party and by extension over the political affairs of the Chinese state. Since the early 1990s, a single person has occupied the top party office and the top state office. However at various times prior, different persons occupied those offices, and a third person holding neither of those offices may have been widely recognized as the leader with ultimate convening and decision-making power.
Referring to the person with ultimate political authority in China as top leader of the People's Republic of China became routine during the era of Deng Xiaoping, when he unquestionably wielded political power without holding any of the top state, government or party positions at any given time. In recent years the term CPC Central Committee primary responsible person has emerged as the state media's term of art when referring to the role of the party leader.