ABSTRACT
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the largest and most important of a handful of communist party-states that survived the turn of the century. The PRC has endured for more than fifty years, and almost three decades have elapsed since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the legendary leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The economic reforms launched by the late Deng Xiaoping in 1978 have fueled an almost uninterrupted quartercentury of sustained economic growth and prosperity in China. Since 2002, China has witnessed a “sweeping” turnover of party, state, and military elites: first at the 16th CCP Congress in November 2002, then at the 10th National People’s Congress in March 2003, and most recently at the Fourth Plenum of the 16th Central Committee in September 2004.1 According to the New York Times, Hu Jintao’s appointment to fill the position of chair of the Party’s Central Military Commission (CMC) to succeed the retiring Jiang Zemin constituted “the first orderly transfer of power in the history of China’s Communist Party.”2 A new generation of Chinese leaders has come to the fore-the “Fourth Generation.” Given these milestones, it is an appropriate time to take stock of China’s evolving civil-military relations, analyze key trends, and consider implications for the future.
