Abstract
I first addressed the whole Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the autumn of 2007. I stated that the Standing Committee had brought about a scientific approach to development and established a governing philosophy characterized by harmony. I noted that in this way, the Standing Committee had turned over a new page in Chinese socialism, and that its efforts were acknowledged and supported by all CPC members, all the servicemen and women of the People’s Liberation Army, and the Chinese people as a whole. Further, these efforts had won global attention and been applauded the world over. I also asked a series of important questions. How should the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau be run politically? How should a good Standing Committee be ensured? Through what kinds of processes does the Committee reach its decisions? According to what standards does it operate? What mechanisms are in place to ensure that the committee makes the correct major decisions? (Angang Hu 2007b).
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Notes
- 1.
Xinhuanet.com (2011). The American media were The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
- 2.
During the Preparatory Meeting of the 8th CPC National Congress, Mao Zedong stated that the goal was to catch up with and surpass the United States in 50 or 60 years, “China should catch up with the most powerful capitalist country in the world—the United States. The United States has a population of just 170 million, but China’s population is many times that, and China has rich resources and a similar climate. So it is possible to catch up with it. Should we catch up with it? Of course we should. We should completely surpass it after 50 [2006] to 60 years [2016]”. See Mao Zedong’s (1999a).
- 3.
In a National Situation Report in 2000 I set out the future development objectives for China at the start of the new century. The main objective should be to continue catching up with developed countries and narrowing the gap with those countries, in terms of the standard indicators of modernization. In fact China should close the gap with the United States at a faster rate. A developing country with the largest population in the world is bound to catch up with the most advanced and most powerful country in the world. That will constitute a very significant event and will have a great impact on the course of human development in the twenty-first century. See Hu Angang’s (2000).
- 4.
I pointed out in the National Situation Report in 2000 that China was clearly going to narrow the gap with the United States in terms of the size of its economy, and that China would be the leading country in the world in terms of GDP. According to Angus Maddison (1998), in terms of purchasing power parity, China’s GDP was 23.0 % that of the United States in 1978, but this figure rose to 52.0 % in 1995 and then to 60.6 % in 2000. By 2015, China’s GDP should exceed that of the United States. See Hu Angang’s (2000).
- 5.
Data from the Ministry of Education Web site.
- 6.
Compiled by the State Statistics Bureau (2011).
- 7.
UNESCO, Institute for Statistics.
- 8.
“Communique on Main Data of the Sixth National Census in 2010” Issue 1 (April 28, 2011), Issue 2 (April 29, 2011).
- 9.
National Science Foundation (NSF), Science and Engineering Indicators 2010.
- 10.
- 11.
Dream of the Red Chamber, section 110: As the saying goes, “A peony is beautiful, but it still needs the support of green leaves”.
- 12.
For further analysis, see Hu Angang (2008b).
- 13.
CPC Historic Literature, February 2012.
- 14.
Gabriel Abraham Almond, a U.S. political scientist, argues that presidential democracy in the United States, also known as parliamentary democracy, is different from that in other democratic systems. (Gabriel Abraham Almond et~al. 2010.) Wang Bangzuo and others hold that the presidential system should properly be called the system of a presidential republic, which is an organizational form of the democratic republic of the government of the bourgeoisie. The United States was one of the earliest countries to adopt the presidential system, and it is the country with the most outstanding characteristics of the presidential system. Other countries that have adopted the presidential system include those of Latin America, Africa, and some Asian countries. In contrast with the parliamentary system, in the presidential system there is a head of state who has real powers as well as a parliament, which is the national legislative body, and other organs of political power. In the presidential system, the president is the head of government and the head of state. Officials are appointed and removed by the president, and they answer to the president rather than to the parliament. With the strengthening of the functions of management of modern Western nations, the government plays an increasingly important role in the administration of executive affairs, and so administrative power tends to expand. In the United States, the president is head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces; the president has extensive powers and could be termed an “emperor-like president” (Wang Bangzuo et~al. 2006a).
- 15.
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Hu, A. (2014). Introduction—Key to the Success of China’s Political System. In: China’s Collective Presidency. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55279-3_1
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