Party All the Time: Governance and Society in the New Era
The 19th Party Congress provided further testament to the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to suffuse itself into all aspects of society and government. The Congress’s political report sets out grand governance goals that promise to address quality of life issues—and that claim continued party rule as their necessary prerequisite. The report also suggests less tolerance for cultural products or displays that are not explicitly in service of party objectives, particularly as they relate to religion or ethnic minority concerns. Though high-level government personnel changes will not be complete until next spring, new party appointments reveal some of the leaders who will be managing governance and social affairs in the coming years.
This article appeared in the China Leadership Monitor.
The opinions and characterizations in this paper are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the United States Government.
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The 19th Party Congress Political Report
The four most recent Party Congress political reports follow the same general outline, with numbered sections (and subsections) addressing key policy areas in same order. Changes to the structure and content of the report are revealing, offering us a glimpse of the policy outline that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has set for itself in the coming years.1
Key Themes
Even for a party document, 2017’s political report document is dripping with attention to the role of the party. Prescriptions for the CCP’s decisive role have been generously slathered throughout; the report contains an additional 100 instances of the word “party” (党) compared to Hu Jintao’s 2012 version. In this, the 19th Party Congress political report represents the process begun five years ago to reassert party dominance over all major political, social, and economic issues, even as the party seeks to more closely attune itself to the masses’ most pressing concerns.2
Another phrase that proliferated in this report was “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese race” (中华民族伟大复兴). Though present in all the Party Congress political reports since 2002, it spiked in use this year, from seven mentions in 2012 to 27 in 2017. This aligns with long-espoused national narratives highlighting the party’s irreplaceable role in reclaiming China’s rightful place among nations. The constituent phrase “Chinese race” (中华民族), itself also used as a standalone term in 2017 nearly twice as much as in 2012, elides over domestic ethnic cleavages; it binds all those within China—and without, if they have Chinese blood—into a single clutch of humanity with the same shared goals.3 These shifts in word choice reflect the central theme of the report: the CCP as the lone force that can guide China to greatness amid the challenges of a new era.
In contrast to previous reports, which catalogue the practical and theoretical knowledge CCP has acquired during its tenure, this report connects the party to a much larger, grander arc of history, from (the now-obligatory) 5,000 years of history, to the Opium War, to the October Revolution. It defines the great rejuvenation of the Chinese race as the ultimate objective of the party. This defining goal can only be achieved through “great struggle” (with forces that might otherwise put distance the party from the people, or threaten China’s sovereignty), a “great project” (party building), and a “great cause” (socialism with Chinese characteristics). Lest there is any doubt which of these three principles is the most crucial, the report clarifies that “of these, the one that plays the decisive role is the great project of party building” (其中起决定性作用的是党的建设新的伟大工程). If party building fails, so fails the Chinese dream of rejuvenation. The party is the prerequisite for any success.
And how does the CCP define success? On track (by its own lights) to have achieved its first centenary goal of creating a “moderately well-off society” (小康社会) by 2020, the CCP is now focused on achieving its second centenary goal—building a “modern socialist country” by 2050. There do not appear to be any quantitative targets yet associated with this aim, though there may well be in the future, just as the first centenary goal was eventually pegged to doubling per capita income and GDP between 2010 and 2020. For now, the report lays out a two-phase process. From 2020 to 2035, the party should work to see that
… The rights of the people to participate and to develop as equals are adequately protected. The rule of law for the country, the government, and society is basically in place. Institutions in all fields are further improved; the modernization of China’s system and capacity for governance is basically achieved. Social etiquette and civility are significantly enhanced. China’s cultural soft power has grown much stronger; Chinese culture has greater appeal. People are leading more comfortable lives, and the size of the middle-income group has grown considerably. Disparities in urban-rural development, in development between regions, and in living standards are significantly reduced; equitable access to basic public services is basically ensured; and solid progress has been made toward prosperity for everyone. A modern social governance system has basically taken shape, and society is full of vitality, harmonious, and orderly.4
The second fifteen-year phase is in even softer focus, essentially describing utopia: “New heights are reached in every dimension of material, political, cultural and ethical, social, and ecological advancement. Modernization of China’s system and capacity for governance is achieved … Common prosperity for everyone is basically achieved. The Chinese people enjoy happier, safer, and healthier lives.”5
This utopian goal is the natural endpoint for a country whose primary governance challenge has evolved from fulfilling its citizens basic needs (温饱, or keeping them “warm and full”) to fulfilling more spiritual needs (美好生活需要, or the “need for a beautiful life”). It is part and parcel with CCP’s redefinition of the country’s “principal contradiction”—previously “the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people and backward social productivity,” now “the unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.”6 This idea itself is composed of two distinct but intertwined threads: that rife social and economic inequality are potentially dangerous, and that the party-state is now responsible for its citizens’ quality—not just sustenance—of life. This allows the party to implicitly credit itself with already having improved most citizens’ lives but also obligates it to meet the public’s heightened expectations. References to a “beautiful life” (美好生活) appears 14 times in the 2017 report; it is not in any of the previous three reports.
Occasional artistic flourishes ever so slightly alter the overall tone of the report. Though it still bludgeons its way through time-tested linguistic formulations, it also injects moments of poetry into the prose—at least in the Chinese-language text.7 As noted elsewhere in this article, the report contains turns of phrase that give off a bit of sparkle amid the dull landscape of party-speak, like “[we] surmounted, time and time again, crises which appeared insurmountable” (攻克了一个又一个看似不可攻克的难关). Certain phrases are repeated as the opening of successive paragraphs, giving the feeling of a refrain: “Our party was profoundly aware that, to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese race, we must …” (我们党深刻认识到，实现中华民族伟大复兴 ，必须 …). This suggests this report, and its presentation as a speech at the 19th Party Congress, was meant to be rousing, its extended length notwithstanding. If not yet quite a U.S. president’s State of the Union address, it still tilted the balance slightly more toward political showmanship.
Political System
The political system section of the report leads with a new subsection: “Upholding the organic unification of the party’s leadership, of the people being masters of the country, and of the country being ruled according to the law” (坚持党的领导,人民当家作主,依法 治国有机统一). This concept is not new to the 19th Party Congress; it appeared in the three previous political reports. Some of the 2017 language was drawn almost verbatim from Jiang Zemin’s political report in 2002, which stated that “the party’s leadership is the fundamental guarantor that the people are the masters and that the country is ruled according to law; the people being the masters is the inherent requirement of socialist democracy; and ruling the country according to law is the basic strategy by which the party leads the people in governing the country” (党的领导是人民当家作主和依法治国的 根本保证,人民当家作主是社会主义民主政治的本质要求,依法治国是党领导人民治理国家 的基本方略). Thus the party is the only means through which the other two goals—the people being the masters, and ruling the country according to law—are achieved.
The content of this new subsection indicates that it subsumed two separate subsections from the 2012 report, one on “perfecting grassroots democratic mechanisms” (完善基层民主制度) and one on “improving the system for restricting and overseeing the exercise of power” (健全权力运行制约和监督体系). It is noteworthy that the two previous subsections were folded into this particular one, which so strongly stresses the necessity of the party’s leadership as the basis of good governance. The result is that independent mechanisms for good governance (grassroots democracy and checks on power) go from being abstract goals in their own right to specific tools that can only be understood in concert with party rule.8
Even the subsections that remain more or less the same in theme as 2012 are modified to make clear that all governance procedures are mediated by, or conducted for the benefit of, the party. In the subsection on “socialist consultative democracy,” the report states that “consultative democracy is an important method by which to realize the party’s leadership as well as the distinctive form and unique advantage of our country’s socialist democracy” (协商民主是实现党的领导的重要方式，是我国社会主义民主政治的特有形式和独特优势). Compare this with the 2012 phrase, “socialist consultative democracy is a key form of our country’s people’s democracy” (社会主义协商民主是我国人民民主的重要形式).
The report avers that the CCP must reassert unquestioned dominance over all aspects of the political system, but it also suggests that this must be done with regard for its obligations as a ruling party. For example, in 2012, the phrase “respect the law, study the law, abide by the law, and apply the law” (尊法学法守法用法) applied to all of society; in 2017, it applies to “every level of party organization and every party member.” There is also this rather poetic new phrase: “[the party should] strive so that each court case gives the masses a sense of fairness and justice” (努力让人民群众在每一个司法案件中感受到公平正义).
The 2017 report mandates that the Central Committee will establish a new leading small group (LSG) for “comprehensively ruling the country according to the law.” It is telling that this group, ostensibly more logically suited to be under the government’s purview, will be set up as a party body.
Culture
In contrast to the 18th Party Congress political report, the 19th Party Congress report offers a more explicit definition of what the CCP means when it says “culture”: “Socialist culture with Chinese characteristics has its origin in China’s excellent traditional culture, which was born of the more than 5,000 years of civilization of the Chinese race; it was forged from the revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture created by the party leading the people through revolution, construction, and reform; and it is rooted the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics” (中国特色社会主义文化,源自于中华民族五千多年文明历史所孕育的中华优秀传统文化,熔铸于党领导人民在革命、建设、改革中创造的革命文化和社会主义先进文化,植根于中国特色社会主义伟大实践).
Jargon notwithstanding (it is, of course, a bit of a tautology to describe “socialist culture with Chinese characteristics” as being rooted in the “practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics”), the relevant feature here is the fusion of ancient Chinese history and traditions with that which has been produced much more recently under the aegis of the party. The report embeds the party into fundamental notions of what it means to create “Chinese culture.” This definition takes the party’s cultural leadership just a step farther than in the 2012 report, which outlined the ways the party should support the development of a strong socialist culture, but did not explicitly define “socialist culture with Chinese characteristics” as something that includes the party as a requisite component.
The culture section also features several changes to its subsections. While it retains the 2012 report’s general emphasis on core socialist values, civic morality, and top-down management of culture, the 2017 report adds a new subsection on “firmly grasping [the party’s] leadership authority in ideological work” (牢牢掌握意识形态工作领导权).9 In line with the general tone of the report, the new subsection highlights the need to modernize ideological work and make it relevant to the masses while ensuring the party remains the ultimate arbiter of political correctness. To this end, the report says that the party will implement a “responsibility system” for ideological work, though it does not specify what form this might take. Reflecting the party’s general concern that its message, as filtered through official news outlets, is either not being heard or not being believed, the report dictates that the party create new methods to disseminate its narrative while working to increase the spread, influence, and credibility of the press. The party’s efforts to find new and diverse channels to connect with the masses did not start with this report, of course. The Xi administration has been busy propagating its messages through, for example, a host of online cartoon videos (and, for the 19th Party Congress in particular, a bizarrely obsequious online game in which players clap during Xi’s reading of the 2017 political report). However, the report’s specific mention of this effort means we should expect further development of this type of propaganda work.
The report’s ideological guidance also extends to the academy, with knock-on effects for international scholarship. Echoing the 13th Five Year Plan, the report emphasizes the need to deepen research on Marxist theory and develop philosophy, social sciences, and think tanks with Chinese characteristics. Though it encourages distinguishing between political principles, knowledge and thought, and academic viewpoints, it also chillingly says that the party must definitively “oppose and resist all kinds of erroneous views.” It further says that the party should “guide the people to cultivate the correct view of history, ethnicity, country and culture” (引导人们树立正确的历史观、民族观、国家观、文化观). These statements come at the same time that Western academic publishers are deciding whether or not to censor their publications in the mainland at the behest of the Chinese government; the two can and should be understood as deeply related.
The report adds externally focused propaganda to the CCP’s mandate, declaring that “[The party should] enhance its ability to disseminate [its messages] internationally, tell China’s story well, and display the true, three-dimensional totality of China.” It also states that Chinese culture should occupy the prominent position (以我为主) in international cultural exchanges.
Though much of 2017’s culture section represents an amping-up of previous themes, one concept disappeared entirely. The 2012 report emphasized the need to provide Chinese citizens with a rich cultural experience as part of China’s commitment to building a moderately well-off society. This meant that even rural and undeveloped areas should be provided with free access to “cultural services and facilities.” This time, the emphasis is not on ensuring widespread access to culture but on defining what cultural content should be, namely “quality works that celebrate the party, celebrate the motherland, celebrate the people, and celebrate [our] heroes” (讴歌党,讴歌祖国,讴歌人民,讴歌英雄的精品力作).
Social Governance
“The entire party must keep in mind that a person’s problems are the litmus test by which [she] examines the nature of a political party and a regime” (全党必须牢记,为什么人的问题,是检验一个政党、一个政权性质的试金石). So opens the 2017 report’s section on social governance, staking out the position that the CCP’s legitimacy now depends not just on basic economic security but also quality of life concerns. Further on, it continues, “[we must] unceasingly promote social fairness and justice and give shape to effective social governance and good social order. In so doing, [we will] make the people’s sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security ever more substantial, guaranteed, and sustainable” (不断促进社会公平正义，形成有效的社会治理、良好的社会秩序，使人民获得感、幸福感、安全感更加充实、更有保障、更可持续). Compare this with 2012’s “[we must] continue to make new progress so that students receive education, workers receive pay, the sick receive treatment, the elderly receive care, and [people] have a place to live,
striving to make the people’s lives even better” (在学有所教、劳有所得、病有所医、老有所养、住有所居上持续取得新进展，努力让人民过上更好生活).
Many of the specific issue items listed in the social development section reflect this shift in focus. Food and medicine safety stay on the docket, of course, but alongside these are added elder care, accidents and workplace safety, medicine sales and provision, and housing stock and prices (“We must not forget that housing is for living in, not for speculation.”)10 These are all flashpoint issues that could ignite broad dissatisfaction among the upwardly mobile if left unaddressed. At the same time, the report contains fewer mentions of rural health care.
This does not mean that the CCP has abandoned basic poverty alleviation efforts. Indeed, poverty alleviation received its own subsection in this year’s report, while previously separate subsections on employment and wages were compressed into one. The content of the poverty alleviation subsection reiterates the first centenary goal, emphasizing that poor regions must not be left behind when building a “moderately well-off society,” and stating that the rural poor (and entire impoverished regions) should be lifted out of poverty by 2020.
The report also contains a new subsection focused on national security. This has the obvious result that the space allotted to the issue has expanded, with mentions of “national security” (国家安全) more than quadrupling from four in 2012 to 18 in 2017. The subsection brings in a concept new to these political reports: “political security” (政治安全), or protecting CCP rule from threats both internal and external. It also introduces the notions of “national security education” and raising society’s awareness of and cooperation with national security prerogatives.
The new subsection is comparatively open in discussing how ethnicity and religion figure in to the party’s national security thinking, asserting that protecting national security is in the fundamental interests of “people of all ethnicities.” Previously on guard against hostile forces’ attempts to “split, infiltrate, or subvert” the PRC, the CCP is now “determinedly striking out at any acts of infiltration, subversion, sabotage, violent terrorism, ethnic splittism, or religious extremism.” The report does not explicitly say that these statements are aimed primarily at ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims living near the border with Central Asia; it does not have to.
Ethnic Minority and Religious Issues
Neither religion nor ethnic minority affairs have received their own sections in these quinquennial political reports. Though these issues are no doubt the source of extreme anxiety for the Chinese leadership (as evidenced by the money and manpower the regime allots to policing them), their sporadic and brief mentions in the reports suggest that they remain peripheral to the CCP’s core conception of “China,” and by extension, who the “people” are that the CCP must keep marginally satisfied with its rule. This was even more true in 2017. The 2012 report includes “ethnic minority relations” and “religious relations” in its description of united front work, but these phrases are missing in 2017.
Several key themes related to ethnic minorities carried over from the 18th to the 19th Party Congress political report. Both reports affirmed the importance of the ethnic autonomous region governance system, of promoting minorities’ sense of a collective Chinese identity, and of improving “ethnic unity” education. In 2012, however, there was more of an emphasis on providing development and financial assistance to ethnic minority areas, while in 2017 there was more focus on strengthening governance capacity by recruiting ethnic minority cadres and sending talented officials to work in ethnic minority areas.
Perhaps most importantly, the 2012 report said the party should “safeguard ethnic minorities’ legitimate rights and interests, consolidating and developing socialist ethnic minority relations of equality, unity, mutual assistance, and harmony” (保障少数民族合法权益,巩固和发展平等团结互助和谐的社会主义民族关系). The 2017 report has no mention of guaranteeing rights and interests. Instead, it says the party should “strengthen contact, exchanges, and blending between all ethnicities, promoting all ethnicities to be packed closely together like pomegranate seeds” (加强各民族交往交流交融,促进各民族像石榴籽一样紧紧抱在一起). Similarly, the 2012 report encouraged protection of ethnic minority culture; this notion is absent from the 2017 report. A 2012 reference to “traditional Chinese medicine and traditional medicine of ethnic minorities” was whittled down to “traditional Chinese medicine” in 2017. None of these changes are surprising if considered in the context of the ongoing and overwhelming securitization of both Tibet and Xinjiang (which the party describes in its review of the last five years as “innovations in ethnic and religious work” (民族宗教工作创新)). It appears that the PRC’s perceived security needs have finally trumped the CCP’s historical attachment to the idea that it supports and represents all the country’s ethnic groups equally. Thus this report may signal the point at which even nominal support for protecting ethnic minority culture begins to fade away, being subsumed by the notion of the “Chinese race” (中华民族).
Religion, separate from ethnic concerns, only receives one other mention in the 18th and 19th Party Congress work reports. In 2012, the report mandated the CCP “comprehensively implement the party’s basic policy on religious work and fully leverage to the positive role that religious figures and believers can play in promoting economic and social development” (全面贯彻党的宗教工作基本方针,发挥宗教界人士和信教群众在促进经济社会发展中的积极作用); in other words, “impose controls on religion but allow it to work in service of the party’s goals.” In 2017, this became “comprehensively implement the party’s basic policy on religious work, persist in the direction of the Sinicization of our country’s religions, and actively guide religions to adapt to socialist society” (全面贯彻党的宗教工作基本方针,坚持我国宗教的中国化方向，积极引导宗教与社会主义社会相适应); or, “impose controls on religion and remold it until it takes a shape the party likes.”
Personnel Changes
There are a wide range of party positions that relate to the very broad policy goals outlined above.11 Some of the rather unexpected recent personnel appointments, however, have added extra uncertainty into the transition process, and we do not yet know if previous staffing patterns will continue to hold (whether or not, for example, a particular portfolio in the party hierarchy is still linked with membership in a particular LSG).
Party theoretician and newly-appointed Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) member Wang Huning will likely preside over propaganda and ideology. Not only was he the behind-the-scenes strategist to Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping, he is also the firstranked member of the Central Committee Secretariat, which was also erstwhile propaganda czar Liu Yunshan’s concurrent position while on the PBSC. Wang will also probably take Liu’s place as head of the Propaganda and Ideology LSG.12 It is noteworthy, however, that Wang has not filled Liu’s previous role as president of the Central Party School; that position went instead to Chen Xi, Politburo member and head of the CCP’s Organization Department. Huang Kunming, new head of the Propaganda Department, may lead the Cultural System Reform and Development LSG, as did his predecessor Liu Qibao.13 (What now becomes of Liu Qibao himself remains unclear, given that he is still a member of the new Central Committee and well below informal retirement age.) The Cyberspace Administration of China also plays an important role in this sector; Xu Lin, who is also a deputy head of the Propaganda Department and runs the Internet Security and Informatization LSG General Office, remains in place as its head.
In the legal and security sector, Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun was elevated to the Politburo and assumed leadership of the Central Committee’s Politics and Law Commission, following the same promotion pattern has his predecessor Meng Jianzhu. (Zhao Kezhi, previously Hebei Party Secretary, has replaced Guo Minister of Public Security.) Guo may well also take Meng’s place as head of the Judicial System Reform LSG.14 Membership of the newly-established LSG on ruling the country by law is as yet unclear, though it would be surprising if Guo were not on the roster. The membership of the Democratic and Legal Systems Reform group, a subgroup of the Comprehensively Deepening Reform LSG, is still unknown.
We don’t yet know who will replace Yu Zhengsheng as chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC); Wang Yang and Han Zheng have both been mentioned as possibilities, though the PBSC rank order strongly suggests that Wang will head the CPPCC and Han will become Executive Vice Premier. Whoever it is, he will likely also become head of both the Tibet and Xinjiang LSGs.15 Central Committee and Secretariat member You Quan was transferred from his slot as Fujian Party Secretary to take up the United Front Work Department (UFWD) directorship. (Previous director Sun Chunlan awaits her next assignment, though she remains on the Politburo.) The membership of the United Front Work LSG, established in 2015, has been and remains unknown.16 Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo is now a Politburo member; this does not preclude him from staying on in Xinjiang—and indeed, his draconian security measures there likely make him a success in the party’s eyes. Tibet Party Secretary Wu Yingjie was elevated to the Central Committee, as was his predecessor Chen Quanguo before him.
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Notes
1 This author consulted the Chinese versions of the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Party Congress political reports for this article. When mentioned by name throughout the article, the following citations are the versions consulted. 19th Party Congress/2017: “习近平：决胜全面建成小康社会 夺取新时代中国特色社会主义伟大胜利——在中国共产党第十九次全国代表大会上的报告” (Xi Jinping: Secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and strive for the great success of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era—report at the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th Party Congress), Xinhua, October 27, 2017, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/19cpcnc/2017-10/27/c_1121867529.htm. 18th Party Congress/2012: “胡锦涛在中国共产党第十八次全国代表大会上的报告” (Hu Jintao’s report at the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th Party Congress), Xinhua, November 17, 2012, http://news.xinhuanet.com/18cpcnc/2012-11/17/c_113711665.htm. 17th Party Congress/2007: “胡锦涛在党的十七大上的报告” (Hu Jintao’s report at the CCP’s 17th Party Congress), People.com.cn, October 24, 2007, http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1024/6429094.html. 16th Party Congress/2002: “在中国共产党第十六次全国代表大会上的报告” (Report at the Chinese Communist Party’s 16th Party Congress), People.com.cn, November 8, 2002, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/64168/64569/65444/4429125.html.
2 This article focuses on policy shifts related to social affairs and governance, though not address the increasingly politically salient issue of environmental protection.
3 The official English versions of these political reports use the word “nation” as the translation for the Chinese term minzu (民族). The correct translation of this particular word is debatable; see Victor Mair’s June 24, 2017 Language Log post, “Renewal of the Race/Nation,” http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=33412. This author has chosen to translate minzu as “race”—also an imperfect gloss, but closer to the original Chinese than the often-confused English term “nation.” Translations throughout the article, beyond commonly-used terms, are the author’s own unless otherwise cited.
4 Xi Jinping, “Secure a Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the Great Success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” Xinhua, November 3, 2017, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/download/Xi_Jinping’s_report_at_19th_CPC_National_Congress.pdf.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 In another aside about translation, the English version of the 2017 political report omits the exclamation point following the exhortation “Comrades!” (同志们!) that appears 16 times in the Chinese version. This omission has no substantive policy implications, but certainly drains a bit of the spirit from the rather lengthy text. In contrast, the Chinese version of the 2012 political report only used the word “comrades” in this exhortative manner twice, and only one of those times was deemed rousing enough to merit an exclamation point.
8 Total mentions of “grassroots democracy” went from six in 2012 (four of which came in the political reform section) to two in 2017 (one of which occurred in the political reform section). Mentions of “exercise of power” remained consistent at two.
9 This particular phrase also appeared in the 2012 political report but was not featured as prominently. The more general term “ideology” appeared eight times in the 2017 report but only once in 2012.
10 Xi Jinping, “Secure a Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the Great Success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”
11 I am grateful to Alice Miller’s comments to help make this section more complete and precise.
12 Wang Shu 王姝, “中央领导小组逾 22 个 习近平任 4 小组组长(图)” (There are more than 22 Central Committee Leading Small Groups, Xi Jinping is head of four of them (graphic)), China.com.cn, July 31, 2015, http://news.china.com.cn/201507/31/content_36190622.htm.
13 Cui Xiaosu 崔小粟, “刘延东兼任中央文化体制改革和发展工作领导小组副组长” (Liu Yandong is deputy head of the Central Committee Cultural System Reform and Development Work Leading Small Group), People.com.cn, March 26, 2014, http://renshi.people.com.cn/n/2014/0326/c139617-24738065.html.
14 “孟建柱:为全面实施“十三五”规划创造良好法治环境” (Meng Jianzhu: Create a favorable atmosphere for rule of law in order to fully implement the 13th Five Year Plan), Xinhua, November 5, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/201511/05/c_1117054574.htm.
15 Wang Shu 王姝, “中央领导小组逾 22 个 习近平任 4 小组组长(图)” (There are more than 22 Central Committee Leading Small Groups, Xi Jinping is head of four of them (graphic)).
16 Ibid.