China
The largest country in East Asia, bounded to the north by Mongolia;
to the northwest by Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan;
to the southwest by India, Nepal, and Bhutan; to the south by
Myanmar (Burma), Laos, and Vietnam; to the southeast by the South
China Sea; to the east by the East China Sea, North Korea, and
Yellow Sea; and to the northeast by Russia.
Government
China is divided into 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, and three
municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin), each with an
elected local people's government with policy- making power in
defined areas. Ultimate authority resides in the single -chamber
National People's Congress (NPC), composed of circa 2,970 deputies
indirectly elected every five years through local people's congresses.
Deputies to local people's congresses are directly elected through
universal suffrage in constituency contests. The NPC, the `highest
organ of state powerŽ, meets annually and elects a permanent,
155-member standing committee to assume its functions between
sittings. The committee has an inner body comprising a chair and
16 vice chairs. The NPC also elects for a five-year term a State
Central Military Commission (SCMC), leading members of the judiciary,
the vice president, and the state president, who must be at least
45 years old. The president is restricted to two terms in office
and performs primarily ceremonial functions. Executive administration
is effected by a prime minister and a cabinet (state council)
that includes three vice premiers, departmental ministers, state
commission chiefs, the auditor general, the secretary general,
and the governor of the Bank of China. The state council is appointed
by and accountable to the NPC.
China's controlling force is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
It has a parallel hierarchy comprising elected congresses and
committees functioning from village level upwards and taking orders
from above. A national party congress every five years elects
a circa 319-member central committee (189 of whom have full voting
powers) that meets twice a year and elects a circa 20- member
Politburo and a five-member secretariat to exercise day-to-day
control over the party and to frame state and party policy goals.
The Politburo meets weekly and is China 's most significant political
body.
There have been, in recent years, moves towards increased democratization
and decentralization, with allegedly competitive elections to
the NPC's standing committee 1988 and secret voting introduced
within the NPC from 1993. Efforts have also been made to more
clearly demarcate state and party responsibilities and to reduce
CPP interference in state decision-taking. China does not allow
human-rights monitors into the country.
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