Publisher's Synopsis
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with its 66 million members, is the largest ruling political party in the world. Scholars and policymakers are watching whether the Party will wither away as a result of drastic socio-economic changes. With the decline of Marxism and Maoism, will the Party be able to renew its ideology to justify its existence? Will it be able to stay relevant? Will it be able to govern 1.3 billion people effectively? Will it be able to introduce democracy as China's new organizational base? The CCP is not just a Party, as understood commonly in the West. The latest version of the Party Constitution states that the Party is the vanguard of not only the working class, but also the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. Thus the Party will, to a large extent, decide what role China will play in world politics. At the party's 16th Congress in November 2002, Jiang Zemin stepped down as Secretary General. This was the first time in the People's Republic of China's history that a physically healthy party boss stepped down without intensive political struggles among top leaders. The development of the CCP has been one of the major areas that the East Asian Institute has monitored over the years. This collection represents a joint effort by scholars in the institute to understand the CCP under Jiang Zemin. All the papers were previously circulated as working papers and background briefs produced by the East Asian Institute, and were refined and updated for this publication.
