Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
The Politburo Standing Committee, officially the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is a committee consisting of the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the state, as some of its members concurrently hold the most senior positions within the state council. Historically it has been composed of five to eleven members, and currently has seven members. Its officially mandated purpose is to conduct policy discussions and make decisions on major issues when the Politburo, a larger decision-making body, is not in session. According to the party's constitution, the General Secretary of the Central Committee must also be a member of the Politburo Standing Committee.
According to the party's Constitution, the party's Central Committee elects the Politburo Standing Committee. The method by which membership is determined has evolved over time. In turn, the Politburo chooses the Politburo Standing Committee through secretive negotiations. The Standing Committee functions as the epicenter of the CCP's power and leadership, and its membership has ranged from five to eleven people. During the Mao Zedong era, Mao himself selected and expelled members, while during the Deng Xiaoping era, consultations among party elders on the Central Advisory Commission determined membership. Since the 1990s, Politburo membership has been determined through deliberations and straw polls by incumbent and retired members of both the Politburo and the Standing Committee.
The PSC is theoretically responsible to the Politburo, which is in turn responsible to the larger Central Committee. Additionally, because China is a one-party state, Standing Committee decisions must be converted into State Council or NPC regulations to acquire the force of law. Its membership is closely watched by both the national media as well as political watchers abroad. Historically, the role of the PSC has varied and evolved. During the Cultural Revolution, for example, the PSC had little power.
The membership of the PSC is strictly ranked in protocol sequence. Historically, the General Secretary has been ranked first; the rankings of other leaders have varied over time. Since the 1990s, the General Secretary, President, Premier, first-ranked Vice Premier, Chairman of the National People's Congress, the Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party's top anti-graft body, and the first secretary of the CCP Secretariat have consistently also been members of the Politburo Standing Committee, though their relative seniority has shifted between congresses. The portfolios of additional members varied.
Terminology
The Politburo Standing Committee is technically responsible to the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. In Chinese political usage, a "Standing Committee" simply refers to a body that carries out the day-to-day affairs of its parent organ, in this case, the Politburo. "Politburo Standing Committee" is the most commonly used name to refer to the body in English-language media. It is sometimes abbreviated PSC or PBSC. It can also be referred to informally as simply the "Standing Committee". In its official English-language press releases, Chinese state media refers to the body by its lengthier, formal name, "The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee". In turn, its members are officially referred to as "Members of Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee". These official forms are rarely used by English-language newspapers outside of mainland China.In official Chinese-language announcements, the most commonly used name for members of the body is Zhōnggòng Zhōngyāng Zhèngzhìjú Chángwěi ; this is an abbreviation of the much lengthier official title of Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng Zhōngyāng Zhèngzhìjú Chángwù Wěiyuánhuì Wěiyuán. As even the officially abbreviated terminology may still be too lengthy and unwieldy, some media outlets refer to PSC members as Zhèngzhìjú Chángwěi or simply Chángwěi. However, note that without any context, Changwei may still be an ambiguous term, as provincial and local party committees all have a Standing Committee, the members of which can also be known as Changwei.
History
Early history
The first Standing Committee was formed in July 1928, at a meeting of the 6th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Between January 1934 and the 1st plenary session of the 8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 1956, the Standing Committee was replaced by the Central Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party. During the early history of the CCP it was seen as the highest central body that was intended to carry out day-to-day work of the Party's Central Committee. It was composed of the top leadership figures of the larger Political Bureau. Unlike most other Communist parties in the world modeled after the party of Lenin, the CCP formed a Standing Committee because the Politburo was considered too large and unwieldy to make decisions effectively.Cultural Revolution
In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, the Politburo Standing Committee ceased normal operations, as many of its key members, such as Chinese President Liu Shaoqi and Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, fell out of favour with Chairman Mao. Real power was concentrated in the Cultural Revolution Group, which was nominally reporting to the Politburo Standing Committee but in fact was a separate "centre of authority" that acted mostly on its own accord. At the 9th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, radical supporters of Mao, Chen Boda, and Kang Sheng, gained seats on the Politburo Standing Committee, and it resumed a somewhat normal functioning. The last years of the Cultural Revolution were dominated by internal chaos. Between 1975 and 1976, PSC members Kang Sheng, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Mao all died. Deng Xiaoping was purged. During this time the body lost any semblance of a functioning policy-making or executive organ, and it met only on an ad hoc basis. By Mao's death in September 1976, the only members who still attended meetings were Hua Guofeng, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, and Ye Jianying, with Zhang and Wang being members of the Gang of Four. On 6 October, Hua Guofeng called a PSC meeting ostensibly to discuss Mao's legacy and memorial arrangements, inviting the active PSC members to attend. Wang and Zhang were both arrested at the meeting and accused of "counter-revolutionary crimes". Thereafter, only Ye and Hua continued their official duties. A functioning PSC was not restored until 1977.After economic reforms
After taking power in 1978, one of the goals of Deng Xiaoping was to strengthen the power of the party and institutionalize bodies such as the Politburo and its Standing Committee. For much of the 1980s, the PSC was restored as the party's supreme decision-making body. The committee was again organized on the basis of democratic centralism, that is, decisions were to be made based on consensus, and, failing that, decisions are taken by majority vote; once a decision is taken the entire body speaks with one voice. However, the PSC competed with retired party elders for influence. Deng Xiaoping himself bridged the two bodies, and his informal clout translated to great political power personally. In 1987, Deng and other party elders ousted then General Secretary Hu Yaobang from the PSC, replacing him with Zhao Ziyang. In 1989, Deng and various party elders ordered the military to intervene in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests without gaining the consensus of the PSC. Zhao was opposed to declaring martial law and broke with other members of the PSC, notably Premier Li Peng. In the aftermath, Zhao and Hu Qili were removed from the PSC at the Fourth Plenum in 1989, largely by fiat of Deng and the elders rather than institutional procedure, to be replaced by Jiang Zemin and Li Ruihuan.The operation of the Standing Committee has remained largely stable since Tiananmen in 1989. The 1989 Plenum was the last occasion where a major reshuffle of the PSC occurred. At the 14th Party Congress in 1992, seven people - Jiang, Li Peng, Qiao Shi, Li Ruihuan, Zhu Rongji, Liu Huaqing, and Hu Jintao - were named to the Standing Committee, this arrangement remained unchanged until the regularly scheduled 15th Party Congress in 1997, where Qiao Shi and Liu Huaqing retired and were replaced by Wei Jianxing and Li Lanqing, showing the first signs that the PSC would become a term-based body operating on a fixed schedule. Liu Huaqing was also the last PSC member with a military background. In 1999, Vice President Hu Jintao also became Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, as he was being groomed to succeed Jiang. This was the first time Vice President had occupied the post of Vice Chairman of the CMC.
At the 16th Party Congress held in 2002, the Standing Committee was expanded from seven to nine members. Some political observers speculated that the expansion was done in order to stack the new Standing Committee with loyalists of Jiang Zemin, though this characterization has been disputed. During Hu Jintao's term as General Secretary, the PSC could be understood as a "leadership collective" or a "joint presidency"; that is, essentially a body operating on consensus that executes powers normally granted to a single officeholder. The 16th Party Congress also saw Li Changchun gain a seat on the PSC without a formally defined portfolio, though he was widely considered to be the "propaganda chief". Huang Ju died in June 2007, becoming the first sitting PSC member to die in office since 1976. His vacancy was not filled ostensibly because it was only a few months preceding a Party Congress, making the body operate temporarily with an eight-member structure. The 17th Party Congress maintained roughly the same structure as the 16th.
At the 18th Party Congress held in 2012, membership of the PSC was yet again reduced to seven members. The head of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission did not feature in the new Standing Committee, neither did the vice-president. The positions of executive secretary of the Secretariat and that of "propaganda chief" were consolidated into one person, Liu Yunshan.