when it comes to how the government of
the people's republic of china works
people generally know
not that much
i mean we all know who xi jinping is and
we all know how well china tends to rank
on the various democracy indexes but how
exactly is the chinese government
structured how does it work how did they
get stuff done like the us has a
president and a congress and all that
while the uk is a prime minister and a
parliament and all that stuff but as you
might suspect china has a very different
political system
so what does this all look like in china
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china's government is classified as a
unitary one-party socialist republic now
let's unpack this for a bit of context a
unitary state is a state where political
power lies first and foremost in the
national government as opposed to
federal states whose political power
comes from being a union of different
sub-national entities
essentially power's distributed from the
top down rather than from the bottom up
if you know something about
international politics think of maybe
the uk as an example of a unitary state
and the us or germany as examples of a
federal state oh by the way because a
lot of people commented this on my
european microstates video from a year
ago state can refer to a country and a
type of subdivision i really hate the
practice that i like to call knowledge
jamming but i also seriously can't
believe how many people seem to miss
this
anyway one party is essentially what it
says on the tin one party's in charge
and only one party realistically can be
in charge
that doesn't mean there aren't actually
any parties aside from the chinese
communist party though there are
actually quite a few however the ccp
holds a monopoly over true power within
the country
socialist well that's an argument with
ben shapiro that i'm not really in the
mood for and finally republic is also a
convoluted term that someone else
possibly named jj michaela could make a
whole video about and that you could
even watch once this video's over
china's government is based in the
northern bay capital jing in order to
fully understand the whole system though
we need to understand not just the
structure of the government itself but
also that of the chinese communist party
as all institutions in china from the
national level all the way down to those
serving individual villages ultimately
report to the party the title of general
secretary of the communist party and
president of the people's republic of
china are different titles
however given the ccp's dominance over
governments these are generally held by
the same person at any given time
starting at the top xi jinping as of
this video's writing currently fills
both the aforementioned roles working
alongside the seven members standing
committee of the politburo
these other six members while in
practice under the authority of xi still
play an important role in national
politics
the politburo a soviet-style portmento
for political bureau is the main
decision-making entity of the party
largely for the purposes of overseeing
the party's decisions
the poly bureau's members consist of the
party's 25 top members seven of whom of
course form the politburo standing
committee
these members are generally allies of xi
jinping and many also hold key roles in
regional governments or the military
xi jinping however is merely the head of
state with the head of governments being
premier league
as such he is the head of the state
council also known as the central
people's government a 35-person body
filling the same role as that of a
cabinet with many of its members in
charge of one of 26 different
constituent departments
these departments include ministries
such as those for foreign affairs or
transport or commerce though also
including the people's bank of china the
national audit office and the three
commissions on development and reform
ethnic affairs and health
the state council however is often
understood as one of the three branches
of the people's republic's governments
alongside the chinese communist party
and the people's liberation army led
indirectly by the ccp
the pla is under the control of the
central military commission itself part
of the communist party
no guys you'll never guess who the
chairman of the central military
commission is
the legislative body equivalent to a
parliamentary congress is the national
people's congress
the npc holds nearly 3 000 seats
two-thirds of which are held by the
communist party with the other third
being reserved for technical experts and
representatives from any of eight other
political parties
however these parties do not serve as
the opposition and must ultimately
submit to the leadership of the
communist party while in theory the npc
votes on policies put forth by the
politburo in practice their approval is
something more of a rubber stamp
the npc however only meets unfold to
pass legislation during a two-week
period every year and thus most of the
legislation on a given day is passed by
the standing committee elected from the
members of the npc
although considerably smaller this body
still has 175 seats which actually seems
a little weird considering it's the
standing committee
now here's an interesting fact china
does actually do elections
though not exactly in the way democratic
countries do elections so how does these
elections work find out after a brief
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and now time to learn about how chinese
elections work
those who are members of the chinese
communist party encompassing a
membership of around 90 million are able
to vote for their local people's
congresses
from there those elected to local
people's congresses vote for those to
serve in higher levels of people's
congresses with the national people's
congress eventually electing the state
council and the presidents making for a
very hierarchical system indeed
this doesn't mean just anyone can make
it to beijing though as the candidates
who can run are subjected to intense
scrutiny by local election leaders
china is divided into 31 subdivisions
consisting of 22 provinces four
municipalities basically cities on the
same level as provinces although
slightly different and five autonomous
regions with the addition of the two
special administrative regions the
governors of the provinces and the
autonomous regions as well as the mayors
of the municipalities are appointed by
the national government with the consent
of the npc
though hong kong and macau are allowed
to choose their own chief executives
within reason
provinces are led first and foremost by
a provincial committee led by a ccp
committee secretary alongside the
province's governor while these two
offices are thought to be more or less
on the same footing the secretary is
more often than not the de facto highest
ranking person in any given provincial
governments
with the governor right behind
as some of these provinces of course can
rival countries as big as japan and
mexico in terms of population though
logically they are divided into cities
counties autonomous counties and
autonomous prefectures the five
autonomous regions are essentially
special subdivisions for non-han ethnic
groups those five including tibet for
the tibetans xinjiang for the uyghurs
inner mongolia for the mongolians within
china
ningxia for the hawaii essentially
chinese-speaking muslims and guangxi for
a group known as the juan who speak a
thai kadai language more similar to tai
these regions generally hold certain
autonomy when it comes to local
government legislation
unfortunately however these regions most
infamously the first two listed are also
infamous for the human rights abuses
that have been inflicted against their
main ethno-religious groups
something i really can't avoid at least
mentioning if i'm to remain neutral
back in beijing the national people's
congress meets in a building known as
the great hall of the people on the
western side of tiananmen square the
same place where the national congress
of the chinese communist party takes
place every five years
the congress meets over a roughly one
week period in october or november in a
year ending in two or seven and is where
top leaders meet to discuss important
policy changes approved membership of
the central committee and a whole bunch
of other nerd stuff that affects the
leadership of one of the most powerful
countries in the world
the last time i covered the structure of
a country's governments about a year ago
wait it was over two years ago my god
this coveted time is where it literally
feels like we're just starting 2021
anyway uh two years ago i talked about
the government of germany and this one
definitely posed a few more challenges
in that one not just due to china's size
or how differently his government works
from western governments but also the
fact that china is a lot more
controversial than germany
nowadays at least particularly in
knowledge to all the recent headlines
i'm sure you've come across
as i intend for my videos to be as
apolitical as humanly possible though
still describing things as accurately as
i can
this video is merely intended to be an
overview of the basic structure of how
china's governments and the chinese
communist party work
and to that i hope i was able to at
least help you understand the whole
topic on a bit of a deeper level than
before
uh
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