Constitutional history of the People's Republic of China
Encyclopedia
The Constitutional history of the People's Republic of China describes the evolution of its Constitutional system. The first Constitution of the People's Republic of China
Constitution of the People's Republic of China
The Constitution of the People's Republic of China is the highest law within the People's Republic of China. The current version was adopted by the 5th National People's Congress on December 4, 1982 with further revisions in 1988, 1993, 1999, and 2004. Three previous state constitutions—those of...

 was promulgated in 1954. After two intervening versions enacted in 1975 and 1978, the current Constitution was promulgated in 1982. There were significant differences between each of these versions, and the 1982 Constitution has subsequently been amended several times. In addition, changing Constitutional conventions
Constitutional convention (political custom)
A constitutional convention is an informal and uncodified procedural agreement that is followed by the institutions of a state. In some states, notably those Commonwealth of Nations states that follow the Westminster system and whose political systems derive from British constitutional law, most...

 have led to significant changes in the structure of Chinese government in the absence of changes in the text of the Constitution.

The Common Program (1949)

In 1949, the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...

 was turning decisively in favour of the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...

. In June, the Communist Party organised a "Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference [], shortened as 人民政协, Rénmín Zhèngxié, i.e. "People's PCC"; or just 政协, Zhèngxié, i.e. "The PCC"), abbreviated CPPCC, is a political advisory body in the People's Republic of China...

" (CPPCC) to prepare for the establishment of a new regime to replace the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...

-dominated Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...

 government.

The first meeting of the CPPCC opened on 21 September, 1949, and was attended by the Communist Party along with eight aligned parties. The first CPPCC served in effect as a Constitutional Convention
Constitutional convention (political meeting)
A constitutional convention is now a gathering for the purpose of writing a new constitution or revising an existing constitution. A general constitutional convention is called to create the first constitution of a political unit or to entirely replace an existing constitution...

. The meeting approved the Common Program, which was effectively an interim Constitution, specifying the structure of the new government, and determining the name and symbols of the new state. It also elected leaders of the new central government, including Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

 as Chairman of the Central People's Government. After the end of the conference, the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 was proclaimed on 1 October, 1949.

The People's Republic of China government functioned for the next five years under the Common Program, with a degree of democracy and inclusion that was not seen again in Chinese government to the present day. Among the provisions of the Common Program were those guaranteeing protection of private property
Private property
Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...

 (Article 3), "uniting" the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...

 (Article 13), and assisting private enterprise (Article 30). The first People's Government, elected in 1949, included a significant number of representatives from parties other than the Communist Party.

1954 Constitution

In accordance with the Common Program, preparations soon began for convening the first National People's Congress
National People's Congress
The National People's Congress , abbreviated NPC , is the highest state body and the only legislative house in the People's Republic of China. The National People's Congress is held in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China; with 2,987 members, it is the...

 and the drafting of the first permanent Constitution of the People's Republic of China. On 24 December 1952, a resolution was moved by Premier
Premier of the People's Republic of China
The Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China , sometimes also referred to as the "Prime Minister" informally, is the Leader of the State Council of the People's Republic of China , who is the head of government and holds the highest-ranking of the Civil service of the...

 Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...

 on behalf of the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...

 at the 43rd meeting of the first CPPCC Standing Committee to draft the new, permanent, Constitution. The resolution was passed, and on 13 January 1953, the Central People's Government appointed a thirty-person drafting committee led by Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

.

The drafting process was dominated by the Communist Party, and was almost exclusively restricted to the Politburo
Politburo of the Communist Party of China
The Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China or Political bureau of the CPC Central Committee , formerly as Central Bureau before 1927, is a group of 24 people who oversee the Communist Party of China...

. In March 1954, the draft Constitution was passed to the CPPCC and also distributed within the Communist Party. On 20 September 1954, exactly five years after the passage of the Common Program, the first meeting of the first National People's Congress
National People's Congress
The National People's Congress , abbreviated NPC , is the highest state body and the only legislative house in the People's Republic of China. The National People's Congress is held in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China; with 2,987 members, it is the...

 unanimously approved the new Constitution. This version has subsequently been called the "1954 Constitution".

The 1954 Constitution included a preamble and 108 articles organised into four chapters. It specified a government structure remarkably similar to the current system. Chapter Two of the 1954 Constitution set up a system of government composed of six structural parts. The highest organ of government was the legislature, the National People's Congress
National People's Congress
The National People's Congress , abbreviated NPC , is the highest state body and the only legislative house in the People's Republic of China. The National People's Congress is held in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China; with 2,987 members, it is the...

. The executive was composed of the President
President of the People's Republic of China
The President of the People's Republic of China is a ceremonial office and a part of State organs under the National People's Congress and it is the head of state of the People's Republic of China . The office was created by the 1982 Constitution...

 and the State Council
State Council of the People's Republic of China
The State Council of the People's Republic of China , which is largely synonymous with the Central People's Government after 1954, is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the Premier and includes the heads of each governmental department and agency...

. Sub-national government was to be composed of people's congresses and people's committees of various levels. Autonomous ethnic areas would decide on their forms of government according to the wishes of the "majority of the people" in these areas. Finally, a hierarchy of courts headed by the Supreme People's Court and a procuratorial
Public procurator
A public procurator is an officer of a state charged with both the investigation and prosecution of crime. The office is a feature of a civil law inquisitorial rather than common law adversarial system of law and is usually found in current or former communist states...

 system headed by the Supreme People's Procuratorate
Supreme People's Procuratorate
The Supreme People's Procuratorate is the highest agency at the national level responsible for both prosecution and investigation in the People's Republic of China...

 formed the judicial system.

Chapter Three, Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens, guaranteed a relatively comprehensive set of human rights, but also imposed the duty to pay taxes, undertake national service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...

, and to obey the law.

Like the subsequent versions of the Constitution, the 1954 Constitution was not entrenched. It could be amended by the National People's Congress (Article 27(1)) by a special two-thirds majority (Article 29) without recourse to a referendum or other such mechanism.

1975 Constitution

However, the Chinese government functioned more or less as envisaged for only a short time. In 1957, the Anti-Rightist Movement
Anti-Rightist Movement
The Anti-Rightist Movement of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s and early 1960s consisted of a series of campaigns to purge alleged "rightists" within the Communist Party of China and abroad...

 marked the beginning of a series of political movements and purges during which the Constitution largely failed to be respected. These culminated in the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...

 (1966-1976), a period in which the normal operation of government virtually ceased. In 1966, President Liu Shaoqi
Liu Shaoqi
Liu Shaoqi was a Chinese revolutionary, statesman, and theorist. He was Chairman of the People's Republic of China, China's head of state, from 27 April 1959 to 31 October 1968, during which he implemented policies of economic reconstruction in China...

 was political denounced, and from 1967 was placed under house arrest. After suffering two years of persecution, Liu died, unreported, in 1969, and the position of President was left unfilled. During this period, most government bodies around the country ceased operation; various levels of people's governments were replaced by Revolutionary Committees. Instead of (formally) by election, power passed via public denunciations and, in many cases, violent clashes.

In 1975, Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

 and his supporters sought to formalise their power through the promulgation of a new Constitution. Under the 1975 Constitution, the office of the President (officially translated as "Chairman" during this period) was abolished, leaving Mao, as the Chairman of the Communist Party, as the sole power centre. Formal duties of the President as Head of State were to be performed by the Chairman of the National People's Congress (who was, at the time, Zhu De
Zhu De
Zhu De was a Chinese militarist, politician, revolutionary, and one of the pioneers of the Chinese Communist Party. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in 1955 Zhu became one of the Ten Marshals of the People's Liberation Army, of which he is regarded as the founder.-Early...

). The replacement of local government by Revolutionary Committees was also formalised. The Constitution was shorted to 30 articles, and the Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens was greatly shortened. Guarantees removed included the rights to property and privacy, freedom from political discrimination, freedom of movement, speech, and artistic freedom, among other human rights. Concurrently, the duty to pay taxes was also removed. The 1975 Constitution also saw a significant shift in tone compared to the 1954 Constitution, and saw the insertion of a significant number of ideological sloganeering provisions.

1978 Constitution

Mao died in 1976, and the Gang of Four
Gang of Four
The Gang of Four was the name given to a political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution and were subsequently charged with a series of treasonous crimes...

 who had dominated Chinese politics were driven out of power by October 1976. The 1978 Constitution was promulgated in March 1978 under the chairmanship of Hua Guofeng
Hua Guofeng
Su Zhu, better known by the nom de guerre Hua Guofeng , was Mao Zedong's designated successor as the Paramount Leader of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China. Upon Zhou Enlai's death in 1976, he succeeded Zhou as the second Premier of the People's Republic of China...

. It contained 60 sections organised into four Chapters. In many ways, the 1978 Constitution was a compromise between the interim leadership's desire to consolidate power using Mao's moral authority, while responding to the popular desire to reverse the Leftists extremes of the previous period. On the one hand, the new Constitution in many places maintained the ideological tone of the 1975 Constitution, such as in Article 16 ("State officials must diligently study Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thought, serve the people whole-heartedly ...") and Article 19 ("The fundamental role of the Armed Forces is: [...] defending against destabilisation and invasion from Socio-Imperialism, Imperialism, and their running dogs"). At the same time, the need for "Socialist democracy" was emphasised (Article 3), and the 1954 system of government was largely restored, with the exception of the Presidency, which remained absent.

1982 Constitution

The 1978 Constitution was again short-lived. In December 1978, the third plenary meeting of the 11th Communist Party Central Committee began a series of reviews and reforms that confirmed Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...

 as the new paramount leader of China, with reform-minded leaders supported by Deng filling the top echelon of government. As part of the Deng faction's political reform agenda, a fourth Constitution was promulgated on 4 December 1982. The 1982 Constitution was born in a political environment where the past, including Mao's "errors" and almost all of the Communist Party's policies from 1949, were relatively objectively re-examined, and the country's future, including the pursuit of market economic
Market economy
A market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...

 reforms, were being openly debated. As a result, the 1982 Constitution returned the government structure to broadly that set up in 1954, with the Presidency restored. The Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens were greatly expanded, and elevated to Chapter Two, ahead of the provisions for the structure of the government. The 1982 Constitution was subsequently amended in 1988, 1993, 1999 and 2004, generally modifying the Constitution in accordance with economic and political reforms over that period. The current compilation dates from 14 March 2004.

The system of government set up under the 1982 Constitution has undergone some changes, largely due to the evolution of Constitutional conventions rather than textual amendments. The most significant of these occurred in 1989-1993. As drafted, the 1982 Constitution contemplated that the power of the state would be distributed amongst the Chairman of the Central Military Commission
Chairman of the Central Military Commission
The Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China has overall responsibility for the Central Military Commission. According to Chapter 3, Section 4 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, "The Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of...

, the Premier of the State Council, and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China
General Secretary of the Communist Party of China
The General Secretary of the Communist Party of China , officially General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is the highest ranking official within the Communist Party of China, a standing member of the Politburo and head of the Secretariat...

. The President, as head of state, would be a symbolic role with little substantive power. Such was the arrangement until 1989. However, during the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests, the President, Yang Shangkun
Yang Shangkun
Yang Shangkun was President of the People's Republic of China from 1988 to 1993, and was permanent Vice-chair of the Central Military Commission...

, used his formal powers under the Constitution to declare a state of emergency and collude in the subsequent violent crackdown in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, against the wishes of Zhao Ziyang
Zhao Ziyang
Zhao Ziyang was a high-ranking politician in the People's Republic of China . He was the third Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1987 to 1989....

, the General Secretary of the Party. In a reaction against the conflict between the two roles, at the expiration of Yang's term, the new General Secretary, Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005...

, also became President, and later took on the position of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission
Chairman of the Central Military Commission
The Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China has overall responsibility for the Central Military Commission. According to Chapter 3, Section 4 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, "The Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of...

 as well. In this way, the centres of power were unified. This convention has continued to this day.

See also

  • Constitution of the People's Republic of China
    Constitution of the People's Republic of China
    The Constitution of the People's Republic of China is the highest law within the People's Republic of China. The current version was adopted by the 5th National People's Congress on December 4, 1982 with further revisions in 1988, 1993, 1999, and 2004. Three previous state constitutions—those of...

  • History of the People's Republic of China
    History of the People's Republic of China
    The history of the People's Republic of China details the history of mainland China since October 1, 1949, when, after a near complete victory by the Communist Party of China in the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China from atop Tiananmen...

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