‘Containing Xi’, or refining party rule?
What does the latest politburo meeting reveal about Chinese politics?
The Investigator | No. 15/2025
New regulations on central decision making bodies
Speculation about the June politburo meeting readout is feeding rumours of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s ‘weakening’ hold on power. The readout announced that the politburo had reviewed new ‘Regulations on Party Centre Decision Making, Discussion and Coordinating Body Work’ [‘党中央决策议事协调机构工作条例’].
This speculation hangs on two ideas. The wilder of the two is that some elusive group of actors has decided to establish a new body above Xi. This is based on a misreading of the first line of the readout – a boilerplate introduction to the topic at hand, not a declaration of a new power centre being established. The second is that these regulations are designed to rein in Xi’s power by placing it under institutionalised constraint.
Both readings ignore basic facts and two ongoing, well-documented trends: centralised CCP decision making nudging out the state, and ‘rule-based rule of the party’ [‘依规治党’]. Linking the readout to speculation about Xi’s ‘decline’ misses an opportunity to examine the regulations’ significance for the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) evolving political system. While analysis of Xi’s impact on the system rightly points to power ‘centralisation’ and ‘personalisation’, less is known about how the CCP and its leader use power once it has been centralised. The regulations – not yet released – are likely part of the party centre’s ongoing task of modifying institutions to help it put centralised power into action.
To be clear, the politburo meeting readout contains nothing shocking. The party centre has long been planning to formulate the regulations in question. We know this because they were mentioned in April 2023’s Central Intra-Party Regulations Formulation Work Plan Outline (2023-2027) (hereinafter ‘Party Regulations Formulation Outline’).
What is ‘centralised power’ without rules to use it?
These planned regulations are part of Xi’s longstanding pet project to govern the CCP and the PRC by rules – his macro-plan combines ‘rule-based rule of the party’ and ‘law-based rule of the country.’ On coming to power, Xi spoke of the party’s need for rules to rein in the party’s excesses and avoid the existential threat of a breakdown in the party-people relationship, and he has been making rules ever since.
Xi has made rules about making rules – stipulating how party regulations can be formulated and by whom – and has made rules to put his fellow party members’ authority ‘in a cage’ [‘把权力关在笼子里’]. He has used rules to his advantage, giving himself maximum flexibility for pushing through decisions and to remould the party’s internal workings, creating new incentive structures, and making himself the ‘core’ with whom all must ‘align.’ He has used rules for everything; from dictating how many dishes cadres may serve when entertaining to delineating party powers to manipulate the state.
Xi takes rules, and their use for creating governance mechanisms, seriously. He regards them as integral to ‘modernising’ Chinese governance. In 2019, a Central Committee Plenum document resolved to ‘better translate China’s institutional strengths into national governance efficacy.’ The document called for ‘strengthening the role’ of the bodies involved in the controversial politburo readout, improving mechanisms for ensuring party centre decisions are implemented and ‘strictly enforcing’ the instruction requesting and reporting system – a little-discussed system of longstanding importance to the party’s internal workings which is discussed later in this article.
Xi has used rules not only to maximise his concentration of power, but also to facilitate its use. The Central Military Commission ‘Chairman in Charge’ system [‘中央军委主席负责制’] is a case in point. While analysts stress Xi’s being ‘in charge’ – and his ultimate authority to make decisions – his attempt to create a whole set of rules and mechanisms to facilitate this decision-making role go under the radar. For instance, the ‘three mechanisms’ developed through intra-party rules seek to serve the Chairman’s decision making capabilities.
What are Party Centre DDC bodies?
Party Centre Decision Making, Discussion and Coordination bodies (DDC bodies) form a level of authority which shifts major decision making upwards, away from state institutions. Some were originally ‘Leadership Small Groups’ transformed into commissions under the 2018 institutional reform. Their upgrade sought to ‘strengthen the Party Centre’s centralised, unified leadership over major work.’ Others, such as the Central Science and Technology Commission (CSTC), were established directly as commissions.
Though researchers refer to the new regulations as the ‘regulations on the Work of the Party Central Committees [DDC bodies]’, the document’s official title uses ‘Party Centre’ [‘党中央’], not ‘Central Committee’ [‘中央委员会’]. This reflects the nature of Party Centre DDC bodies: they are beholden to the 24 men of the politburo or the seven men of its Standing Committee (PBSC) and not to the larger Central Committee. Xi himself, as General Secretary, has direct control over the topics of DDC body meetings, either deciding on, or giving the go-ahead to, a meeting.
On the functions of Party Centre DDC bodies, the language from the June politburo readout is almost verbatim that of the aforementioned Party Regulations Formulation Outline. The Outline stated that such regulations are needed to help DDC bodies fulfil their functions of: ‘top-level design, choreographing and coordinating, integrated promotion, and monitoring and urging implementation’ [‘顶层设计, 统筹协调, 整体推进, 督促落实’] of major work. This is precisely the language used in the 2020 Central Committee Work Regulations, which stipulate the Central Committee’s power to create DDC bodies. The politburo readout uses the same ‘4x4’ character expression. This language is also used for the specific DDC bodies. The 2023 institutional reform plan describes the then-new Central Finance Commission’s functions in exactly the same way. The PRC Law on Foreign Relations grants the same functions to the Central Foreign Affairs Commission.
The new regulations will complement or adjust existing rules. Said rules themselves reveal something of these elusive power centres’ workings. Xi’s ten-year rule making spree has reinvigorated the Instruction Requesting and Reporting system [‘请示报告制度’] (IRR). The IRR lets lower ranking bodies request instructions from senior organisations and report back up on implementation. It enables party entities to respond to eventualities on the ground in their locality or policy field, although it can also create logjams.
At least since 2019, DDC bodies – and their leaders individually – have been permitted to play the role of IRR responders. This may be a way of delegating party centre authority while helping facilitate calibration of policies with central requirements. It could also help with the apparent spike in IRR requests resulting from a decade of relentless campaigns, pervasive punishments and strict demands for alignment with party centre policy, which has left officials ‘lying flat’ or looking for other ways to avoid culpability. DDC bodies have been ordered to create detailed and specific rules for implementing IRR in their own fields. This could amount to substantive power delegation to the heads of DDC bodies’ implementing offices.
The respective arrangements of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission (CFAC) and the CSTC serve as useful discussion points. Wang Yi, CFAC Office Head, holds triple roles, also serving as a politburo member and Minister of Foreign Affairs. This links CFAC decisions directly to the principal state implementing agency. With Wang heading both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the CFAC Office, he can implement CFAC decisions through both the MFA and through coordinated action with other CFAC member ministries. Wang’s position as CFAC Office Head may be an authoritative lever to press other agencies to coordinate with the MFA. While the CFAC-MFA setup may be an outlier (due to the demise of Qin Gang, Wang’s predecessor), the CSTC’s arrangements are similar. Yin Hejun, Minister of Science and Technology (and Central Committee member), reportedly doubles up as CSTC Office Head, allowing CSTC decisions to flow directly to the Ministry of Science and Technology and giving Yin the lever of CSTC Office Head to help coordinate the implementation of CSTC decisions.
Xi ‘in decline’ or delegated powers being refined?
Returning to the politburo meeting readout, considering the powerful role of DDC Office Heads it is unsurprising that regulations should require DDC bodies to ‘coordinate, not stand in for, and perform as required, not overstep’ [‘统筹不代替、到位不越位’]. While speculation sees this as a ‘direct criticism of Xi’, it is more likely that the relevant provision seeks to regulate the power delegated by the Party Centre. Notably, Xi has himself used the expression in relation to the Central Comprehensive Law-based-rule Commission.
Overlooking subnational practice misses a chance to reflect on assumptions. Countering the notion that, from the politburo readout, ‘some language could reasonably be read as Xi being shunted aside’, provincial-level party committees are repeating that very same language in a promise to do better. Shanxi, Chongqing and Xinjiang, for example, declared that they will ‘study the spirit’ of Xi’s ‘important [politburo meeting] speech’ and improve the practices of their subnational DDC bodies. They will produce ‘realistic and effective policy measures’ [‘切合实际、行之有效的政策举措’] – a line also in the politburo meeting readout – and better regulate DDC body establishment and operation under their jurisdiction to ‘ensure implementation of Party Centre decisions.’ Provincial-level party committees have the power to make intra-party regulations. It appears communications about the Party Centre Regulations are prompting them to follow suit and make implementing documents to tighten up on local DDC body practice.
The regulations are likely less a signal of Xi’s waning star and more a run-of-the-mill move to hammer out the details of how the CCP uses the power it has centralised under Xi’s first two and a half terms. It may be that the Party Centre (or members thereof) will attempt to have the regulations’ content incorporated into the Party Charter at the 21st National Party Congress in 2027. This would give the CCP ‘constitutional’ credibility to the use of DDC bodies in governance, consolidating their place in the New Era Party bureaucracy.
Dr Holly Snape is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Glasgow.
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