Translation Tag: governance
Sometimes referred to in shorthand as the “History Resolution” or “Resolution on History,” this document is the Party’s official narrative of its history. The CCP has in total issued three such “resolutions” since its founding in 1921. This resolution follows the 1945 Resolution on Certain Historical Issues [关于若干历史问题的决议] and the 1981 Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China [关于建国以来党的若干历史问题的决议].
Hu Zhongyue, a scholar of Marxism, examines the collapse of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to distill cautionary lessons for the CCP. He argues that by opening its legacy—particularly under Lenin and Stalin—to reevaluation and critique, the CPSU undermined its political legitimacy and public trust in socialism. As a prognosis, Hu emphasizes the gravity of ideological work and urges vigilance to such trends in Chinese society, especially as new technologies disrupt the traditionally unidirectional flow of information.
In this second installment of a three-part paper on the collapse of the Soviet Union, former Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Li Shenming highlights the role of the “fifth column”—forces that worked within the USSR and the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to spread Western values and viewpoints. As a prognosis, Li argues that the CCP must prioritize ideological work, maintain absolute control over the military, and be vigilant of what he terms Western efforts to “infiltrate” China, including through cultural and economic exchange.
Zuo Fengrong, an expert in Soviet history, examines trends in Chinese scholarship on the USSR’s collapse across the past thirty years. Zuo argues that while this literature advanced over time with the availability of newly declassified archival sources, it has stagnated more recently. As a prognosis, Zuo encourages renewed attention to the failure of Soviet socialism and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s (CPSU) loss of power, in order to extract lessons for China.
The CCP Politburo holds “collective study sessions” on a semi-regular basis, in which an outside academic or government expert leads a discussion on a selected topic. Such sessions are important signals as to what issues the senior leadership finds important. The fourth study session of the 20th Central Committee Politburo was held on March 30, 2023 and was presided over by Xi Jinping. At this session, Xi Jinping and other Politburo members urged Party cadres to study and implement “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” in all fields of China’s development.
Guo Shengkun, a former State Councilor who led the Ministry of Public Security, identifies steps he believes Beijing should take to ensure national security amidst an environment he characterizes as increasingly unpredictable, uncertain, and filled with security threats. Guo emphasizes the importance of upholding CCP control of national security work, enhancing China’s economic and technological strength and independence, and improving public security governance.
Two political scientists affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences argue that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) lost its governance legitimacy as a culture of privilege-seeking and corruption formed over time, distracting cadres from understanding and serving the needs of the Soviet people. Based on this assessment, the authors suggest the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continue to expand mass supervision and combat corruption through improvements to cadre education and discipline.
This 2017 speech by Chen Quanguo, then-serving as the Xinjiang Party Secretary, was delivered to senior officials in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region just after the completion of the 19th Party Congress, and contains Chen’s distillation of the meeting’s key outcomes and messages.
This 2019 analysis by Zheng Yongnian, a highly influential political scientist, argues that China is at risk of falling into a “middle-income trap” domestically and a “Thucydides trap” in its relations with the United States. He maintains that, “once a cold war begins, security considerations will dominate the United States’ relationship with China, and the United States will have to abandon the Chinese market for the sake of security.”
Chen Yixin, a high-ranking official at the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission and a possible candidate to take the top spot at the commission at the 20th Party Congress, penned a long, and often hagiographic, analysis of Xi Jinping in a July edition of Study Times, a daily newspaper run by the Central Party School.