The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is to open on 16 October. It’s a hot topic on the Internet. I spent much time on reading information about it. I find it more useful to read introductory articles by experts than to read fragmented information. Here is a piece by Ian Johnson about some basic concepts of Chinese politics.
In the upcoming congress, Xi is going to get his third term as general secretary of the party and chairman of the Central Military Commission. He will get his third term as the president of China on the National People’s Congress in the next spring.
In another piece by Ian Johnson written for Council on Foreign Relations, Ian explains the pyramid-type structure of CCP:
Near the top is the twenty-five-person Political Bureau, or Politburo, which is made up of military officers, provincial leaders, and central party officials. Out of this group is drawn the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, which makes most of the crucial decisions. The head of the Standing Committee is the party’s general secretary, Xi Jinping.
A diagram to illustrate it:
Although sharing this kind of basic background information seems silly, I feel that I have learnt much from this kind of introductory articles. It’s not shameful to do this.
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Ian Johnson’s continuing series of interviews with intellectuals, activists, and artists in China on The New York Review of Books. It seems worth reading.