John D. Langlois, Jr. Memorial Lecture

The East Asian Languages and Cultures department ~ John D. Langlois, Jr. Memorial lecture presents Dr. Ling Li, Lecturer with the East-Asian Studies Department at the University of Vienna

Constitutional Structure of China’s Party-State

The constitutional order of the People’s Republic of China (China) is built on a reformed Leninist system and a power structure that is fundamentally different from that in Western democracies. This power structure involves two parallel power systems: one of the Chinese Communist Party (the Party) and one of the State. The Party system is entirely autonomous and supersedes the State system. It is also provided with bridges to penetrate and command the State system. The State system is employed largely as the Party’s agents to interact with members of the society. Within each of these two power systems, norms and rules, in the form of Party regulations and state laws, have been developed to regulate the interconnected fields of the Party, the State and the society respectively and jointly. During the last two decades, a set of more sophisticated legal instruments have been developed to cement the Party-state into a sui generis constitutional structure that does not fit in any established model in the West. This talk will explain the logic of this constitutional model and address the essential knowledge points to better understand it.