ABSTRACT
Western media often create an unrealistic image of China as a unified monolith, where the word of the leaders in Beijing is the law to which the entire huge country automatically submits. However, when we look closely at the functioning of the Chinese political system, we find that it is more complicated, and implemented rules often diametrically differ across China. The appearance of a monolith evaporates even further when looking at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or broader state apparatus, in which there are several rival camps and “interest groups”. The resulting policy is therefore often the result of negotiations between the different power poles. In fact, China to a large extent functions as a “fragmented authoritarian system”. The CCP has undergone a dynamic reform process over the past decades, which did not bring democratization but the optimization and professionalization of processes within the autocratic system. The Communist Party was thus able to maintain its power, even while most other communist regimes in the world gradually collapsed. However, many of these adjustments have been reversed by Xi Jinping, and Chinese politics is currently in flux.
