Submitted by: Patrick Johansing

In the Chinese political system there are two centers of power, the President and the Premier.  The current President is Hu Jintao.  This position was created in 1982 and it was intended to be mostly a symbolic position without too much power, but it has grown into a very important position.  His main role is to appoint all the Ministers, which are equivalent to our Secretaries (Secretary of State, Secretary of Treasure, etc.).  In fact, he is even supposed to appoint the Premier which is the most important minister post, but this responsibility is actually taken over by the National People’s Congress.  Aside from this power, he also has the power to declare war; although he does not have control over the military, which is semi-autonomous and controlled by the State Central Military Commission.  His typical day to day activities include determining national policies and generating political support for them.  He also serves as the general secretary of the communist party.  He is limited to two five year terms.

The current Premier is Wen Jiabao.  His main responsibility is to organize and administer the Chinese Civil Bureaucracy.  He’s the guy that implements the policies determined by the President.  This means he gets down to the nitty gritty and figures out the logistics of the implementation.

I wanted to find American counterparts for each of these, but it looks like they both take on certain responsibilities that are left up to our President.  I thought that this division of power was pretty interesting, especially since neither the President nor the Premier has control of the military.  My thoughts are that this was probably a reaction to the atrocities caused by Mao Zedong, who was responsible for the Cultural Revolution; a separation of powers will make it more difficult for a single leader to cause such massive destruction.