The Communist Party of China is at the core of politics in China given its unique authority over both state and party. China’s greatest source of state power lies within the National People’s Congress (Tao 2017). The NPC is a 2900-member, parliament like, body that meet at least once a year. They are in charge of passing laws, adjusting the constitution and choosing officials for the Central Committee (Ramzy 2016). The Central Committee is the second highest authoritative organ in the state and is in charge of electing the members of the Politburo. Although important in the Chinese political system, the NPC does not have dominion over law making in the Republic (Ringen 2016). The Politburo of China is the entity who has authoritative power over policymaking in the country. The Chinese Politburo is comprised of 25 members who run the Communist Party of China, China’s ruling entity given its dominion over state and party. Currently only one of the members of the Politburo is female, which goes to prove how unequal population distribution can translate into leadership structure. Within those 25 members there are 7 members who comprise the Standing Committee of the Politburo (Ramzy 2016). These members are China’s inner most circle of power and its members include: are Xi Jinping, Han Zheng, Wang Huning, Li Zhanshu, Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, and Zhao Liji. Members of the Politburo serve for 5-year terms with a one reelection limit. This law was amended in 2017 to eliminate the term limit for both the President and the Vice President (Tan 2017).
Xi Jinping is most commonly recognized around the world as the President of the People’s Republic of China, but he also serves as the General Secretary of the Communist Party. As General Secretary of the Communist Party, Xi Jinping has become China’s most powerful political leader after being elected in 2012 (Albert 2018). Li Keqiang is the Premier of China, which means he is the head of the state council, the government’s official name. The head of the government runs all ministries, including the People’s Bank of China (Pletcher 2018) The different leader of the Politburo have gotten where they are for their abilities to make decisions. But it is important to remember that members of the Chinese Politburo rely heavily on personal relationships and their ability to influence lies on the loyalties he or she establishes with superiors. These significant and influential members controlling the Republic of China will determine what the Chinese economy will look like in the coming years. Recent news from China can already foreshadow how the Chinese leadership is both contributing and hindering economic growth in the region.
China is the world’s 4th largest economy and entrepreneurs are eager to invest in this growing economy (Rogers 2007) With China’s economy growing at an average of 9.4% per year, companies like Google are looking at ways of expanding their profitability into China. Google has been in the news a lot lately for its secretive project, DragonFly. DragonFly is a censored search engine designed specifically for China’s laws on censorship and links all search records to users’ phone numbers. 14,00 Google employees have assigned a petition calling for google to drop project DragonFly (Gallagher 2018). Employees see Google’s move as a way to get market share and have a seat at the table at the expense of suppressing vulnerable individuals (Salinas & D’Onfro 2018). China’s recent investment toward high-tech development have attracted big foreign companies like Google, and has allowed many technology companies to grow in China as well,
Chinese investors have invested over $20 Billion US in 600 high-technology startups in China (PTI 2018). China is now being called the new Silicon Valley given its 47% acquisition of global venture capital in the second quarter of 2018. This sounds promising for China’s economic growth, but are there any repercussions to such substantial investment plan? China’s desire to invest heavily in tech companies, has inhibited investor’s risk assessment on what companies to invest on. Investor are both investing in most-promising and least promising companies as they encounter no risk in investing in both given their immense financial resources and their promptness to follow government priorities (Radu 2018). This over investment in the Chinese tech market has surprisingly hindered innovation given that startups are now less prone to think of ways to be creative with a limited amount of resources. Furthermore, high investment has skyrocketed the valuation of many companies in China, that don’t reflect their ability to make profit. China’s willingness to invest in the high-tech market will both help and hinder the growth of the Chinese economy and how they are able to compete in the global economy. In order to be successful, investors will have to be more capable of distinguishing most-promising companies from fads in order to avoid over inflation and promote innovation.