Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, always remains the supreme body.
Wang, therefore, is still outranked by the secretary of the Beijing committee of the CCP.
That honor goes to Liu Qi, who, in that role, had the pride of being president of the Beijing
Olympics Organizing Committee in 2008.
Being the capital, Beijing is home to most of China's top organs of power, including
the National People's Congress (NPC), the State Council, the Central Military Commission
(which is in charge of the People's Liberation Army, or PLA), and, most importantly, the
headquarters of the CCP. Together with the grand structures that house these and other polit-
ical bodies in the city, the government has a very clear and commanding presence in the
city.
China is divided into 22 provinces (it likes to call Taiwan its 23rd province; Taiwan likes to
think differently); five autonomous regions (Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang,
and Tibet); four municipalities; and two Special Administrative Regions (SARs), these be-
ing Hong Kong and Macau.
The political system that rules these divisions is made up of three main arms—the party,
the army, and the state—and these do not have equal power. The party is the paramount
body, and the army (i.e., the PLA) and the state answer to it.
The party, that being the Chinese Communist Party (CCP; or the Communist Party of
China, CPC), is strictly controlled and very organized. Through a lengthy, highly selective
approval process, people become members of the party. Once they become members, there
are strict laws within the party that they must abide by. Despite the arduous vetting pro-
cess, there are still around 80 million CCP members, making it the world's largest political
party. Every five years the CCP holds a National Party Congress (not to be confused with
the state-level National People's Congress). At the National Party Congress the two main
objectives are to inform people of any important changes to the party's ideology and to elect
new members. The last National Party Congress, the 18th, was held in October 2012, and it
was there that Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang were officially “elected” as the new president and
premier, respectively (in reality the decision had been made well ahead of this event).
Of course, not every party member can have a major position, so the 80 million get
whittled down into a finely pointed cone of command. Of the general collection of mem-
bers, around 2,000 attend the National Party Congress. From this, around 200 elite mem-
bers form the Central Committee. These people are selected from far and wide—ministers,
high-ranking military men, even CEOs from state-owned companies. The Central Commit-
