Xi gains edge as China makes Communist Party more potent than cabinet

China has announced the revision of a law to effectively grant the Communist Party more executive control over the cabinet, or the State Council.

The amended State Council Organic Law was passed by 2,883 delegate votes on Monday (March 11), with eight lawmakers opposing and nine abstaining, during the closing day of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

It was the latest measure in a trend apparent in recent years to steadily erode the executive authority of the State Council, helmed by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, which nominally oversees China's 21 government ministries as well as local governments.

Premier’s presser axed

Li's routine press conference at the closure of the National People's Congress was surprisingly cancelled.

Legal experts told the media that the amendment of the State Council Organic Law for the first time since 1982 continues a trend of transferring more power from the state into the party's hands, leaving the government to faithfully implement party directives.

Newly added articles stress that the State Council must "resolutely uphold the Party Central Committee's authority and its centralised and unified leadership" and follow Xi Jinping Thought, the party's name for the president's signature ideology, which expounds on subjects ranging from diplomacy to culture.

Party is supreme

"This is a significant shift in the reorganisation of executive authority in China," said Ryan Mitchell, a law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "While it is always clear that the head of the party is the most influential figure in the overall hierarchy, the exact division of labour in policymaking and, especially, oversight of policy execution, can be opaque."

Li Hongzhong, vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, said in an address last week to parliament that the revision was intended to "deepen reform of the party and state institutions" and "fully implement the Constitution", which was changed in 2018 to reassert the party's leadership over everything.

"It is yet another sign that the party is both increasing its overt control over state organs and wants to be seen as fully in charge," Reuters quoted Thomas Kellogg, professor of Asian law at Georgetown University in Washington, as saying.

Party’s dictates

"Politics is in command, and both party cadres and government bureaucrats are meant to pay ever-closer attention to the party's dictates and ideological directives as the key guide for day-to-day decision-making," he added.

The cancelled post-parliament news conference of the prime minister is traditionally one of the most closely watched events on Beijing's economic and policy calendars.

Since taking power in 2012, Xi has established several new central party committees overseeing multiple ministries that report directly to him. Some even encroach on economic and financial policy, traditionally viewed as falling under the premier's remit.

Curbing meetings

China last year unveiled a sweeping government reorganisation that created a new party entity to oversee some ministries. Shortly afterwards, the State Council also amended its working rules to clarify that executive decision-making power lies within the party.

Since the new working rules passed, the State Council also no longer holds weekly meetings, instead assembling once or twice a month.

Kellogg also cited the scrapping of the premier's news conference as "another example of state governance institutions falling by the wayside" in favour of the party.

"We're still in the middle of this years-long transformation of the party-state structure, with likely more such changes to come," he said.

Needless to say, these changes will both strengthen party control over state and Xi's absolute control over the party.