What Do We Need to Know About the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)?

This event will be held online via MS Teams and you will need to join via the MS Teams app.

The greatest challenging to understanding the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is dang (党): what is the nature of the governing political organisation in China that we all call a 'party'.

It is widely known to be different from political parties in liberal democracies and often referred to as a 'one-party state'. That is a negative description, telling us it is not part of a multi-party polity. But what would a positive description look like? This would answer the question: 'what do we need to know about the CCP'?

This talk offers some preliminary suggestions, focusing on three themes: ideological governance, inner-party diversity, and lessons of history (for party leaders and for outside observers). These aspects may help extend the useful insights of social science research that has rightly identified leadership, official policy, institutional arrangements, economic performance, and international pressures.

Timothy Cheek is Professor and Louis Cha Chair in Chinese Research at the Institute of Asian Research in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Department of History at The University of British Columbia and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2023). His research, teaching and translating focus on the recent history of China, especially the role of Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century and the history of the Chinese Communist Party. His recent publications include 'Xi Jinping’s Counter-Reformation' in the Journal of Contemporary China (2021) and The Chinese Communist Party: A Century in Ten Lives (2021) with Klaus Mühlhahn and Hans van de Ven.

Chair: Professor Steve Tsang, Director, SOAS China Institute

Contact

• Email: sci@soas.ac.uk
  

Image credit: Christian Lue on Unsplash