Hold China, Shun Dollars – A row of investment awards from some of the world’s largest financial institutions lines the wall of the 76th floor conference room at Henderson Land, the main company owned by Hong Kong billionaire Lee Shau Kee. Skeptics say Lee’s success owes mainly to good ties with bankers and a popular name, helping him to get early access to IPOs. Among the big winners that he bought into early: China Life (nyse: LFC ), the Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Nine Dragons.
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China’s constitution states that The People’s Republic of China “is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants,” and that the state organs “apply the principle of democratic centralism.” The PRC is one of the world’s few remaining socialist states openly endorsing communism (see Ideology of the Communist Party of China). The Chinese government has been variously described as communist and socialist, but also as authoritarian and corporatist, with heavy restrictions in many areas, most notably against free access to the Internet, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, the right to have children, free formation of social organizations and freedom of religion. Its current political, ideological and economic system has been termed by its leaders as the “people’s democratic dictatorship“, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (which is Marxism adapted to Chinese circumstances) and the “socialist market economy” respectively.
Communist Party
China’s constitution declares that the country is ruled “under the leadership” of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The electoral system is pyramidal. Local People’s Congresses are directly elected, and higher levels of People’s Congresses up to the National People’s Congress (NPC) are indirectly elected by the People’s Congress of the level immediately below. The political system is decentralized, and provincial and sub-provincial leaders have a significant amount of autonomy. Other political parties, referred to as democratic parties, have representatives in the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
Compared to its closed-door policies until the mid-1970s, the administrative climate is less restrictive than before. China supports the Leninist principle of “democratic centralism“, but critics describe the elected National People’s Congress as a “rubber stamp” body.
Government
There have been some moves toward political liberalization, in that open contested elections are now held at the village and town levels. However, the Party retains effective control over government appointments: in the absence of meaningful opposition, the CPC wins by default most of the time. Political concerns in China include the growing gap between rich and poor and government corruption. Nonetheless, the level of public support for the government and its management of the nation is high, with 80–95% of Chinese citizens expressing satisfaction with the central government, according to a 2011 survey.
Photo credit: Loïc Lagarde via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-ND
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