Party Watch Quarterly Report 1|3 (May-August 2018)

About this Report

The Party Watch Quarterly Report 1|3 provides a comprehensive overview of important Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-related developments and trends for the period covering May 2018 to August 2018 and offers near-term estimates of their future direction. The report is heavily based on Chinese language publications analyzed during the Party Watch Initiative’s daily monitoring of authoritative CCP-regime sources.

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US-China Trade and the Challenge to China's Senior Leadership

The Central Propaganda Department is directing a balancing act between deterring US trade actions in the US-China trade dispute and preventing further inflammation of bilateral tensions with excessive vitriol or personalized attacks. The danger of a faltering Chinese economy resulting from US trade actions is the greatest near-term risk to CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s veneer of total political control, evidenced by Party commentary addressing detractors of Xi’s strident policies [read more].

China's War on Pollution Gets Political

Since Xi Jinping’s major speech on the environment in May, the CCP’s discipline apparatus has assumed a primary role in fighting China’s “War on Pollution” due to its past effectiveness in bolstering the authority of counter-pollution measures. The Party’s central role in tackling China’s grave environmental situation appears likely to continue for the foreseeable future, confirming the central leadership’s determination to address this core issue of popular concern [read more].

China's "New Type of Party System": A "Multiparty" System for Foreign Consumption?

Since Xi Jinping’s speech at the first session of the 13th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in March, China’s united front apparatus has propagated its long-maintained system of powerless minority political parties under CCP leadership as a model for foreign countries to emulate. It is rebranding this system for external consumption under the rubric of a “new type of party system.” Foreign dignitaries that have dialogue with Chinese united front officials can expect to increasingly be lectured on the superior qualities of this system [read more].