China’s ruling Communist Party has unveiled its biggest revamp in years, highlighting President Xi Jinping’s drive to tighten his grip over the organization that dominates politics in the world’s No. 2 economy.
(Bloomberg) — China’s ruling Communist Party has unveiled its biggest revamp in years, highlighting President Xi Jinping’s drive to tighten his grip over the organization that dominates politics in the world’s No. 2 economy.
The country is setting up central committees to strengthen the party’s leadership in financial and technology sectors, and offices that oversee social work as well as Hong Kong and Macau matters, according to a restructuring plan reported by the official Xinhua News Agency.
The changes underscore Xi’s drive over his decade in power to elevate the status of the ruling party and ensure that it is represented in all walks of life such as private company boardrooms and university lecture halls. The move to centralize power reverses reforms in the 1980s that were led by Deng Xiaoping, who wanted a more professional civil service after Mao Zedong’s disruptive political movements caused famine and bloodshed.
Key changes include:
- Setting up a central financial committee to enhance the party’s centralized oversight over financial work; new body to absorb the financial stability and development committee under the State Council
- Reviving the disbanded Central Financial Work Commission to guide party building in the finance sector
- Establishing a central technology commission to enhance the party’s oversight of technological development. The science & technology ministry will serve as its administrative underling
- Forming a central social work office to handle petitions
- Establishing a central office overseeing Hong Kong and Macau matters that report directly to the Communist Party rather than the government
China last overhauled the party in 2018, when the leadership moved to boost the presence of the organization in state institutions. One of the changes back then was to create the National Supervision Commission out of the party’s main graft watchdog.
The hybrid government-party body has been used to expand Xi’s fight against graft beyond just party officials to millions of public servants, academics, journalists and state company managers.
In a speech to close the recent National People’s Congress — technically the highest organ of power in China — Xi pledged to ensure that the party would maintain its central role.
“To build a strong nation, we have to stick to the leadership of the Communist Party, and the centralized and unified leadership of the party’s Central Committee,” he said, referring to the roughly 200-member body from which key positions in the government, diplomatic corps and military are filled.
Xi used the annual NPC gathering to reorganize the bureaucracy to make the economy more self-sufficient and resilient in the face of US efforts to prevent Beijing from obtaining advanced technology.
That plan strengthened oversight of its $60 trillion financial system, created a new agency to manage data and restructured the Ministry of Science and Technology. China also said it would cut the number of positions at the central level of government by 5% and redistribute them to strategically important areas.
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