The party's continuing relevance stems from its ongoing monopoly on the exercise of political power. As explained above, party bodies make the decisions on the major substantive issues that confront not only the government but all public institutions. Party decisions also determine who will join the elite and what positions they will hold in public bodies. Such decisions are typically made on the basis of extensive consultation with nonparty bodies, but the power of final determination still resides in the CCP. The legislative and legal systems increasingly influence outcomes, but nothing effectively stops the party from acting when the relevant CCP leaders decide to take a decisive stance on an issue. Most importantly, the party also decides China's foreign and security policies.
The leadership relations that govern ties between higher and lower level party committees provide for nationwide discipline in policy implementation. Various factors self-interest, corruption, manipulation, and so forth erode this discipline, but on balance, because of the CCP China retains a remarkably strong executive capability for a developing country of its size and diversity. By integrating all political activity into one overarching organization, moreover, the CCP constrains what otherwise might become paralyzing fissiparous tendencies among various provinces and interests.
But the CCP’s monopoly of political power also means that problems in the CCP become problems for China’s overall political system. These problems are very substantial and include the following:
- Corruption and lack of commitment to real public service within the party are by no means
Universal but are widespread. Given the party’s ability to override legal and regulatory constraints, these problems can have very severe consequences both for the quality of governance and for popular sentiment.
- Changes to China’s society and economy are occurring faster than are comparable adjustments in party organization and function. As noted in Chapter 6, for example, urban governance is shifting from delivery of services via the danwei to utilization of community-based organizations. The party is also shifting to construct basic-level party organs on a community basis, but this effort may be lagging behind the changes in the government.
- The private sector, which is the most rapidly growing and dynamic sector of the Chinese economy, has relatively little participation in the CCP. New efforts to recruit private entrepreneurs to the party will address this problem to a limited degree, but workers in private-sector firms are unlikely to feel that the CCP is becoming more responsive simply because the owners are joining it. The same concerns about responsiveness are even truer for unemployed workers, migrant peasants, and others who fall largely outside the ken of the current party structure.
- Many in China’s increasingly well-informed and sophisticate population question why a country of this wealth and complexity should be governed by a corrupt political party that depends largely on its ability to deliver rapid economic growth to stay in power. This is especially true among those who feel that economic growth since the late 1990s has not provided them with concrete benefits. The CCP had proven adept at steering China’s growth effort but has not developed the capacity to amalgamate. Articulate, and adjudicate the various interests in Chinese society in a way that inspires confidence among broad segments of the population.