Authoritarian models of government:

china
POLITICAL SCIENCE

FOR THE FOURTH SEMESTER OF

B.A. LLB. (HONS.)
SUBMITTED TO. SUBMITTED BY
Dr. Saurav sarmah Abhijeet singh nafri
Roll No.: 18026

2020

RAJIV GANDHI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LAW, PATIALA, PUNJAB

1|Page
 Acknowledgement

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teachers Saurav sarmah as well as the entire
Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law faculty who gave me the golden opportunity to do this
wonderful project on the drama ‘authoritarian government of china’, which also helped me in doing a lot
of research and I came to know about so many new things, I am really thankful to them.
Secondly, I would also like to thank my parents and friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this project
within the limited time frame. I would also take this opportunity to thank the RGNUL library staff, who
helped me to delimit my resources of research.

2|Page
 TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Emergence of people’s republic of china………………………4

➢ Republic of china………………….………………………………4
➢ People’s republic of china………….……………………………...5
2. Structure of Chinese government……………………………….6
3. Analysis of Chinese government……………………………….10
➢ 2018 amendment of Chinese constitution…………………………11

➢ Tiananmen square massacre……………………………………….12

4. Conclusion………………………………………………………14

3|Page
EMERGENCE OF PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

China arose as one of the first civilizations in the world, in the fertile Yellow River basin on the
North China Plain. For centuries, China's political model is based on hereditary monarchies, or
dynasties, starting in 21st century with the semi-mythical Xia dynasty. Since then China has
numerous times grown, split, and re-unified. In the third century, core China was reunited by the
Qin and the first Chinese empire was founded. The successor Han dynasty, which ruled from 206
BCE to 220 CE, had one of the most modern technologies at the time, like paper making and
compass, along with developments in agriculture and medicine. The Four Great Inventions were
finished by the invention of gunpowder and movable type in the Tang dynasty (618–907) and
Northern Song (960–1127) As the modern Silk Route brought merchants to Mesopotamia and the
Horn of Africa, Tang culture spread widely throughout Asia. The monarchical rule ended with the
Xinhai Revolution in 1912, when the Qing dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China (ROC).
All in all, during World War II, China was devastated by colonial anarchy and Japan. The resulting
Chinese Civil War culminated in a territorial divide in 1949 when the Communist Party of China
led by Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China on mainland China, while the
Kuomintang-led nationalist government fled to the island of Taiwan where it ruled until 1996,
when Taiwan transitioned to democracy. Taiwan's political status remains contested to this day.

Republic of china

The Republic of China (1912-1949) was officially known as the successor of the last imperial
dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911). The Republic was founded in the hope of creating a modern state
that would be able to brush off the image of a hedonistic and ancient form of government and enter
the international community sphere.

Yet the Republic had been afflicted with internal struggles from the start. President Yuan Shikai
and others tried to revive the monarchy while the skilled revolutionary, Sun Yat-sen, could only
control his Guangdong province. Several groups of warlords in northern China challenged each
other for influence.

4|Page
While the European states and the US plunged into the Great War catastrophe (1914-1918), and
then into the 1920s economic depression, Japan used this vacuum of power to gain more and more
power over China, and especially the northeastern Manchuria region.

In 1937 the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge led directly into the Second Sino-Japanese War,
whether caused by the Japanese militarists or not. The Japanese controlled the eastern coast, along
the major rivers, with several towns. The Japanese occupation army's most famous atrocity took
place in December 1937, in the capital Nanjing.

The Japanese capitulated in 1945. US envoy General George Marshal could not reconcile Chiang
Kai-shek and Mao Zedong. A bloody civil war erupted in which the Kuomintang National Army
prevailed first, but from 1947 onward the Communist Party's so-called Liberation Army. Mao
Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. With the expectation of
one day reconquering the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek and much of the Kuomintang leaders fled to
Taiwan, where the Republic lived on.

Despite Wester-style banks and large companies, China's economy suffered badly under the raging
civil war, and was only slowly modernized. The Kuomintang worked in the countryside with the
financial institutions it needed to survive but ignored changes. The majority of the population
remained a part of the farming sector. The great changes that took place after the collapse of the
traditional society and its slow transformation had inspired literature and art. Only in the town of
Shanghai were examples of "modernity" seen.1

Peoples republic of china

The history of the People's Republic of China describes the history of china since 1 October 1949,
when Mao Zedong announced the People's Republic of China (PRC) from the top of Tiananmen,
following an almost total victory in the Chinese Civil War by the Communist Party of China
(CPC). The PRC has been associated with China for seven decades, but it is just the newest
political body to rule mainland China, followed by the Republic of China (ROC) and centuries of
colonial dynasties. Mao Zedong (1949-1976), Hua Guofeng (1976-1978), Deng Xiaoping (1978-
1989), Jiang Zemin were paramount leaders. Hu Jintao (2002-2012), and Xi Jinping (2012-2012).

1
Theobald, U. (n.d.). Republic of China 中華民國 (1912-1949). Retrieved from
http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Rep/rep.html

5|Page
They brought China to the world's second largest and fastest growing economy with a
specialization in high-productivity factories and leadership in some high-tech areas from a
conventional peasant society with unrelenting poverty and regular deadly famines. The two nations
became bitter rivals internationally after gaining assistance from the U.S.S.R. in the 1950s, before
the USSR collapsed in 1991. Communism remains the official doctrine, with the party in full
power but in the 21st century with a new large middle class and hundreds of increasingly affluent
businessmen. The new richness and technologies led to a primary contest in Asia.2

2
Theobald, U. (n.d.). People's Republic of China 中华人民共和国 (since 1949). Retrieved from
http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/PRC/prc.html

6|Page
STRUCTURE OF CHINESE GOVERNMENT

COMMUNIST PARTY

The 73million enrollment of the Chinese Communist Party makes it the world's biggest ideological
group. Its nearby association and mercilessness help clarify why it is still in charge too. The
gathering controls and influences numerous aspects of individuals' lives-what they realize at school
and see on TV, their employments and lodging, even the quantity of youngsters they are permitted
to see. Agents are welcome to join their positions now, as well.

POLITBURO –

Any significant choice influencing the 1.3 billion individuals of China is first discussed and
acknowledged by a gathering of men who sit on the political agency (polburo) of the legislature,
the focal point of all force in China. The 24-part Politburo is chosen by a focal panel of the
gathering. Be that as it may, genuine force lies with its standing board of nine individuals, which
goes about as a sort of internal bureau and unites the most remarkable pioneers in the nation.

NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS – The most remarkable state organ under China's
constitution of 1982 should be the National People's Congress (NPC), the Chinese parliament.
Indeed, party choices are just an elastic stamp. The congress comprises of around 3,000

7|Page
representatives chose by China's regions, self-governing districts, regions, and military. Agents
have five years of administration, and the full congress is gathered for one meeting every year.

COURT AND PROSECUTORS –

China's laws speak to a convoluted blend of gathering premiums, a Soviet-roused structure created
after 1949, and a pile of new enactment went since 1979 to bring the nation's modernizing economy
into line with that of major outside financial specialists, for example, the US and Europe. Laws
are utilized as a methods for managing the economy and the lives of people, once in a while
shielding them from the state or revering human rights.

DISCIPLINE COMMISON –

Gathering pioneers blamed for unfortunate behavior, fumble or breaking the partisan principal are
subject to be put before discipline examination boards of trustees, set up to manage inward
gathering control and track infringement. As financial changes have picked up energy, wrongdoing
has perhaps become the absolute most harming issue for the notoriety of the gathering.

MILITARY AFFAIR COMMISION –

The People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) has ensured the gathering just as national fringes.
In the early long periods of socialist standard, the majority of the nation's chiefs owed their
situations to their military accomplishments during the common war, and the ties among them and
the PLA remained very close

ARMED FORCES –

Twenty years back, troopers in China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) invested as a lot of energy
perusing party talks and "social help" as military preparing. The progressions executed since the
1980s have made the military substantially more expert. They've shed a million people in a push
to focus on quality as opposed to amount. Accentuation is centered around better planning, better
hardware and better compensation. In any case, the job of the military as the gathering's defender
implies that it will never be isolated from legislative issues. Officials and individuals likewise need

8|Page
to swear loyalty to the goals of the development, investigate its lessons and read the fundamental
professions of individuals.

PARTY ELDERS –

Senior pioneers frequently keep up extensive authority over choices and arrangements
considerably after officially pulling back from power. The most scandalous model was Deng
Xiaoping, who remained the central head despite the fact that his lone staying official post was the
Chinese Bridge Association president.

STATE COUNCIL –

The State Council is the bureau that administers the enormous government arrangement of China.
It sits at the highest point of a mind boggling structure of commissions and services and is
answerable for guaranteeing that party arrangement is applied from the national to the nearby level.
Hypothetically, it responds to the National People's Congress, yet most as often as possible the
State Council submits laws and strategies that the NPC at that point actualizes.

PROVINCE AND TOWNSHIP-

China is represented by 22 regions, five "self-ruling" districts, four regions – considered too
essential to ever be under the ward of the focal government (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and
Chongqing) – and two exceptional regulatory locales. The individuals accountable for these bodies
– a group of around 7,000 senior gathering individuals and government delegates – are completely
designated by the authoritative division of the gathering.4

4
BBC NEWS. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/china_politics/government/html/11.stm

9|Page
ANALYSIS OF CHINESE GOVERNMENT

I think when we raise the question of whether a government is authoritarian or not, we should look
at the features of authoritarian forces across history and then compare them. We will look at
China's rules. Is it true that the Chinese people own weapons? No. No. Will the Chinese people
have the right to unlimited Internet access? No. No. Can the people of China speak out against the
Government? Not exactly. For a long time, have China's families been uninhibited in having a
family of whatever size they like? No. No. Does China have Religious Freedom? It is only when
the state acknowledges it as an official religion. I think looking back at Mao's 'big leap forward'
would also remind us what the Chinese are doingGovernment is capable of. More people died
from starvation do to mismanagement of agriculture in China than in were killed in the Holocaust.

Now that we are seeing elements of the past of China, we are now going to look at any other
established authoritarian regimes to see if they fit in anyway. Many parallels can be seen when
comparing China with Nazi Germany. There was of course a prohibition on private ownership of
weapons. We all know about the Nazi-era German Gestapo, and while Chinese aren't as overt
about taking people opposing the government, we do know that censorship is taking place.
Although the one-child policy is at an end that does not mean China is not out of the woods. They
are now allowed to have 2. The government continues to controll the population heavily. Nazi
Germany has done almost the same. Not allowing Jews to have babies, they began Lebensborn
too. Chinese and Nazi Germany both tried to control some part of the population. Looking at Nazi
Germany, we have to wonder whether there was religious freedom, the answer being of course no.
China and Nazi Germany share many forms of authoritarianism.

We are going on into the Soviet Union. I think the biggest link between them at the beginning of
the PRC was the friendship. The Soviet Union was assisting the CCP to seize power in China. This
would be a dead gift as to the PRC's governance form. The soviets were not allowed to own
weapons. They have been heavily censored. Religion all but died out in Russia under soviet rule.
On top of that when we're talking about population control, just look up the definition of
"Holodomor" to see if the Soviet Union in any way governed its citizens. About as many people
died here as they did in the Holocaust.

10 | P a g e
Some other points giving the example of authoritarian regime-

Framing ideological groups is illicit in China - you can't make an ideological group. Nor can
some other political association look for political office, campaign the administration for change
or speak to contradicting perspectives than those of the decision socialist gathering.

Rights to speak freely, get together and religion are for the most part seriously diminished
in China. - People can't offer expressions which are contrary to the administration, nor would they
be able to reprimand the legislature without gambling confinement or detainment. Gatherings, for
example, trade guild can't amass without uncommon authorization or in numerous cases,at all.
Falun Gong, strict gathering is banned in China. Different strict are firmly observed or confined.

The progression of money is firmly controlled in China - Investors can only with significant
effort remove benefits from the nation or make certain ventures without government consent. The
legislature, not the free market, sets the trade paces of cash.

Individuals are regularly not allowed to leave China - The legislature seriously diminishes the
privileges of Chinese residents to leave the nation, particularly those it regards to be a danger to
inner or national security.

China has a huge number of individuals imprisoned on what must be viewed as political, as
opposed to criminal, offenses - These individuals are deprived of their essential rights, they have
scarcely any legitimate recourses to address their detainment and many have no entrance to lawful
guidance or their families.

2018 amendment of Chinese constitution –

China changed its Constitution for the first time in 14 years on March 11, 2018, overturning core
constitutional changes implemented under Deng Xiaoping's leadership.

Chinese constitutional amendments take the form of new articles which define additions or
revisions to the existing text. Four prior changes were made to the 1982 Constitution, containing
a total of 31 articles. The new amendment, submitted by the Communist Party of China in March
2018 (based on a resolution adopted at the National Congress of the preceding October) and
rubber-stamped by the National People's Congress, added 21 more posts. Among these are changes

11 | P a g e
which ignore the purpose of the framers of the Constitution and in some cases overturn its core
principles

Some of the highlight of this amendment –

1. Solidification of one-party rule –

One feature of the most recent alteration, as it occurs, is a change that supports the established
reason for one-party rule by joining the accompanying sentence into Article 1, section 2: "The
focal part of Chinese-trademark communism is the authority of the Chinese Communist Party."

2. Abrogation of residency –

Another significant change was the disposal of presidential and bad habit presidential term
limits. Article 79 recently expressed: 'The term of office of the President and Vice-President
of the People's Republic of China will be equivalent to that of the National People's Congress,
and will serve close to two sequential terms.' The change immediately got help from
researchers in-holding up of the Xi system on the grounds of congruity in the feeling of China's
"trinity" structure, where one part holds the three places of gathering secretary general,
president, and seat of the Central Military Commission.

3. Enshrinement if xi jinping thoughts –

Xi Jinping Thinking was presented last October at the National Congress of the gathering as a
fundamental regulation of the CPC. In a matter of moments did Xi Jinping Thought training
and research programs popp up the world over. The fuse of the hypothesis in the constitution,
charged as the foundation of the correction in 2018, is a milestone in Xi's tireless battle to
increase singular renown and quality.5

The Tiananmen square massacre is the case of the tyrant government that was there in 1989 and
slaughtered a huge number of people groups. Everything began with The fights on Tiananmen
Square were understudy driven shows in China calling for majority rule government, opportunity

5
China's New "Xi Jinping Constitution": The Road to Totalitarianism. (2019, March 6). Retrieved from
https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a05803/china’s-new-xi-jinping-constitution-the-road-to-
totalitarianism.html

12 | P a g e
of articulation and a free press. On June 4 and 5, 1989, the Chinese Government halted them in a
ruthless crackdown, known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Ace majority rules system demonstrators, predominantly understudies, at first walked to

Tiananmen Square through Beijing after Hu Yaobang's demise. Hu, a previous individual from the
Communist Party, had been attempting to realize political change in China. The understudies had
required a progressively straightforward, popularity based government in grieving Hu. In the long
run a huge number of individuals joined the understudies in Tiananmen Square, and by mid-May
the quantity of the fights expanded to several thousands.

In spite of the fact that the military's underlying mediation neglected to suppress the exhibitions,
the Chinese specialists chose to step up their viciousness. In 1 a.m. Chinese fighters and police
attacked Tiananmen Square on June 4, hurling live adjusts into the groups. While a large number
of demonstrators were just attempting to escape, others were retaliating, stoning the assaulting
troops and setting military vehicles ablaze. That day, journalists and Western negotiators there
announced that in the Tiananmen Square Massacre hundreds to thousands of demonstrators were
killed, and upwards of 10,000 were captured.The demonstrations and massacre on Tiananmen
Square today, June 4 and 5, continue to echo around the world. The U.S. In 1999 Tiananmen
Square, 1989: The Declassified Past, was published in the National Security Archive. The text
includes U.S. State Department documents concerning the demonstrations and subsequent military
crackdown. The 1989 Tiananmen Square incidents were also heavily censored on China's tightly-
controlled internet. More than 3,200 words referring to the massacre had been censored6.

6
History.com Editors. (2019, May 31). Tiananmen Square Protests. Retrieved from
https://www.history.com/topics/china/tiananmen-square

13 | P a g e
CONCLUSION

The reality is that the Chinese people have been seeing an authoritarian government as a capable
and effective government ever since the start of Chinese history. The Chinese think the government
is the nation's protector, and probably an extended family. The government is to administer and
rule and make sure the country thrives and the people are happy with the government. To order to
learn about China, it is important to think with a Chinese mentality, with Chinese principles, not a
standard lazy western way to look at China. Similarly, western governments may be deemed
corrupt, inept and a failed government under Chinese norms.

There is government for administration of the rules. The general concept is that they have to follow
the statute. So a responsible government must be authoritarian, or it will not do its job.Strong and
poor governments do exist. A good government will be one that gives the country wealth and
works very hard to eliminate the poverty.

14 | P a g e
BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Tiananmen Square Protests. Retrieved from

https://www.history.com/topics/china/tiananmen-square
2. "Xi Jinping Constitution": The Road to Totalitarianism
3. Republic of China 中華民國 (1912-1949) by U. Theobald
4. New people’s republic of china (since 1949) by U. Theobald

Newspaper reports –

➢ BBC NEWS. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/china_politics/government/html/11.stm

15 | P a g e