Chinese Leadership
May 30th, 2009
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.
Entry Filed under: Pre-Departure, Beijing, China
7 Comments Add your own
1. Morgan O'Hara | May 30th, 2009 at 8:16 am
I concur with your last thought, Pat. I recently saw a documentary on the Cultural Revolution, and it was disturbing to see millions of people so blindly and fervently follow Mao’s orders. After his passing, China’s leaders have shunned the cult of personality. Granting so much power to one man does not lend itself to good governance …
2. Andrea Muntzel | May 31st, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I was interested in this same topic and researched it myself a few months ago. If we’re entering a foreign country, it seems like we should understand something about the politics. I tried to look up something about the various checks and balances in China and the United States and what the effects of dividing up the office of the President would be, but I couldn’t find anything that really touched on that subject. Anyway, though, thanks for touching on an obvious topic that hasn’t really been touched on yet.
3. Amy Cook | May 31st, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I agree, the concept of separation of powers definitely helps quell dictatorships and prevent atrocities such as the Cultural Revolution.
However, while reading this post I began to wonder why the government would create the position of President simply to serve as a figurehead. After a little research I found that it was not newly created, but reinstated. Specifically, Mao had been president, given up his presidency because of his failure in the Great Leap Forward and then (several years later) overthrew his successor Liu Shaoqi, in the Cultural Revolution. Mao’s Red Guards threw him in prison in 1968 where he died. Mao never replaced the President as he did not want anyone to threaten his power.
Another interesting point I came across was that one of the first real exhibits of power for a Chinese President was in 1989 when President Yang Shangkun was able to declare martial law in Beijing and order the crackdown of protestors in Tiananmen Square. This was in opposition to the wishes of many in government, including the Party General Secretary. So, it seems the President does have quite a bit of power.
4. Andre Ourthiague | May 31st, 2009 at 8:51 pm
I agree that China might be trying to avoid giving to much power to one individual as a reaction to Mao’s leadership. Adding to what Morgan said, blindly following leadership has been a common threat throughout history. Horrible atrocities are often fueled by good people remaining silent and following along. It takes a lot of courage to stand up for what you believe, especially when higher powers are against you. I think China recognizes that there political system could put too much power in the hands of any one individual, and they ensuring that personal aspirations are not valued over China’s growth by separating the top positions.
5. Oscar Merlin | June 8th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I also agree with you Pat, and think that you should not give any single individual too much power. And, to bring the example closer to home we have Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to compare to Mao. I do not see Chavez’s charisma but can understand from world reports that this guy is just like Mao. He has been given too much power by the Venezuelan people that coupled with his ‘vision’ for a better an independent Venezuela are going to end up driving the whole country to the ground. It almost seems as if that Chavez and Mao needed to take a read brief read of ‘Good to Great’ to make them realize that no ‘one’ individual can drive sustained competitive improvement. To me, if their countries cannot operate without them being in power then it means that they have done something terribly wrong.
6. Mark Wegemer | June 12th, 2009 at 11:04 am
As notified by the other comments, the separation of powers is key to good governance. Dictatorship tends to not work so well in signified by past countries and leaders. Mao wanted what was best for the country. However, he transformed the country to a “slavery” mentality thinking what was best for the country. Obviously his power didn’t go over so well with the people and the countrymen. Separation of power will limit the possibilities for dictatorship and should provide a better lifestyle for everyone. At least, history seems to agree.
7. Justin Miller | June 13th, 2009 at 6:05 am
That was very interesting. I have to admit that I new who the President was, but I had no idea about the Premier. Thanks for bringing this subject up Patrick. I was originally going to post about how I was impressed that China had created a system to limit the powers of one man so that there could not be another Mao, but it thanks to Amy it seems that Mao was actually the one who created the split leaders out of his own quest for power. I’m glad they were at least able to turn his arrogant move of creating a new position of power for himself, and turned it into a system of checks and balances. While I don’t know if it would ever happen, it would be interesting to see how it would play out if the President and Premier had a major disagreement about an issue and went after each other.
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