ABSTRACT
The utility of the concept of political business, with its emphasis on politicization of business and the importance of a symbiotic relation between ruling parties and cliques of clientalist business interests in solidifying political hegemony in developing states, might appear somewhat irrelevant in the case of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). After all, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims a monopoly on political power based on a transcendent ideological mandate and its 1949 revolution victory, which it supplements with the might of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and a party apparatus that penetrates the “commanding heights” of society and the economy. The party thus not only does not depend on political resources contributed by members of business community to maintain its grip on power, through its control of the state it effectively owns most of the major corporations and the banks. As such, political power and business power overlap to a considerable extent, with the holders of political power claiming direct control over key segments of the economy.
