United Front (China)

The United Front (simplified Chinese: 统一战线; traditional Chinese: 統一戰線; pinyin: Tǒngyī Zhànxiàn) in China is a popular front of legally permitted parties in the country as well as other groups, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and used to advance its interests. Besides the CCP, it traditionally includes eight minor parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, various independents, and other organizations.[3] It is presently managed by the United Front Work Department (Chinese: 中共中央统一战线工作部), but involves other organizations.[4] Its current department head is You Quan.[5]

For other uses, see United Front (China) (disambiguation).
United Front

统一战线
General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (leading party)Xi Jinping
ChairmanWang Yang
Vice ChairmenZhang Qingli
FounderMao Zedong
Founded1946 (1946)
HeadquartersBeijing
IdeologySocialism with Chinese characteristics
Xi Jinping Thought
National People's Congress
2,980 / 2,980
NPC Standing Committee
175 / 175
United Front
Simplified Chinese统一战线
Traditional Chinese統一戰線
Socialist United Front
Simplified Chinese社会主义统一战线
Traditional Chinese社會主義統一戰線
Patriotic United Front
Simplified Chinese爱国(主义)统一战线
Traditional Chinese愛國(主義)統一戰線
People's Democratic United Front (1945–1966)[1]
Simplified Chinese人民民主统一战线
Traditional Chinese人民民主統一戰線
Revolutionary United Front
(1966–1978)[2]
Simplified Chinese革命统一战线
Traditional Chinese革命統一戰線
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History

The CCP organized the "National Revolution United Front" (Chinese: 國民革命統一戰線) with the Kuomintang during the Northern Expedition of 1926–1928 and then the "Workers' and Peasants' Democratic United Front" (Chinese: 工農民主統一戰線) in the Chinese Soviet Republic era of 1931–1937. Mao Zedong originally promoted the "Anti-Japanese National United Front" (Chinese: 抗日民族統一戰線), with the name indicating that the proletarian Chinese Communists had united with the bourgeoisie against Imperial Japan[6] in the 1930s. It "assumed its current form" in 1946,[7] three years before the Chinese Communist Party defeated the authoritarian governing party Kuomintang's Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. Mao credited the United Front as one of his "Three Magic Weapons" against the Kuomintang—alongside the Leninist Chinese Communist Party and the Red Army—and credited the Front with playing a part in his victory.[7][8]

Constitutional status

The United Front holds no real power independent of the Chinese Communist Party; it exists mainly to give non-Communist forces a platform in the society of the People's Republic.[9] The CCP's relationship with other parties is based on the principle of "long-term coexistence and mutual supervision, treating each other with full sincerity and sharing weal or woe".[10] Its leaders are mostly selected by the Communist Party, or are themselves CCP members.[11] This process is institutionalized in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).[10] In practice, however, the member parties of the front are almost completely subservient to the CCP, and must accept the CCP's "leading role" as a condition of their continued existence.

The United Front parties have nominal representation in the National People's Congress.

"In building socialism it is essential to rely on workers, peasants and intellectuals and to unite all forces that can be united. In the long years of revolution and construction, there has been formed under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party a broad patriotic united front which is composed of the democratic parties and people's organizations and which embraces all socialist working people, all builders of socialism, all patriots who support socialism, and all patriots who stand for the reunification of the motherland. This united front will continue to be consolidated and developed. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a broadly based representative organization of the united front which has played a significant historical role, will play a still more important role in the country's political and social life, in promoting friendship with other countries and in the struggle for socialist modernization and for the reunification and unity of the country. The system of the multi-party cooperation and political consultation led by the Communist Party of China will exist and develop for a long time to come."

—Preamble of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China[12]

United Front members
Party Chinese name Ideology National People's Congress Government
Chinese Communist Party 中国共产党 Communism
Xi Jinping Thought
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
2,119 / 2,980
 government
Jiusan Society 九三学社 Progressivism
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
64 / 2,980
 government
China Democratic League 中国民主同盟 Chinese nationalism
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
58 / 2,980
 government
China National Democratic Construction Association 中国民主建国会 Socialist market economy
Socialism with Chinese characteristics

Chinese nationalism
57 / 2,980
 government
China Association for Promoting Democracy 中国民主促进会 Social democracy
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
55 / 2,980
 government
Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party 中国农工民主党 New Democracy
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
54 / 2,980
 government
Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang 中国国民党革命委员会‎ Three Principles of the People
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
43 / 2,980
 government
China Zhi Gong Party 中国致公党 Federalism

Chinese nationalism

Maoism
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
38 / 2,980
 government
Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League 台湾民主自治同盟 Chinese unification

One country, two systems
Socialism with Chinese characteristics
13 / 2,980
 government

The Chinese United Front also includes the following organisations:

Organs

The two organs affiliated with United Front are the United Front Work Department and the more high-profile Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). According to Yi-Zheng Lian, the organs "are often poorly understood outside China because there are no equivalents for them in the West".[7]

United Front Work Department
Main article: United Front Work Department

The United Front Work Department is headed by the chief of the secretariat of the CCP's Central Committee. It oversees a dozen organizations such as the Chinese Students and Scholars Association.[13] It helps (for example) Chinese students and academics training or residing in the West, enjoining them to conduct "people diplomacy" on behalf of the People's Republic of China.[7]

Electoral history

National People's Congress elections
Election Seats +/– Position Government
1982–83
2,978 / 2,978
 1st Sole legal coalition
1987–88
2,979 / 2,979
 1 1st Sole legal coalition
1993–94
2,979 / 2,979
 1st Sole legal coalition
1997–98
2,979 / 2,979
 1st Sole legal coalition
2002–03
2,984 / 2,984
 5 1st Sole legal coalition
2007–08
2,987 / 2,987
 3 1st Sole legal coalition
2012–13
2,987 / 2,987
 1st Sole legal coalition
2017–18
2,980 / 2,980
 7 1st Sole legal coalition
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See also

References
  1. 1954 Constitution, http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/wxzl/2000-12/26/content_4264.htm Archived 2019-08-16 at the Wayback Machine
  2. 1975 Constitution: http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/wxzl/2000-12/06/content_4362.htm Archived 2018-07-05 at the Wayback Machine; 1978 Constitution: http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/wxzl/2000-12/06/content_4365.htm Archived 2018-09-29 at the Wayback Machine
  3. "The United Front in Communist China" (PDF). Central Intelligence Agency. May 1957. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  4. Joske, Alex (June 9, 2020). "The party speaks for you: Foreign interference and the Chinese Communist Party's united front system". Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Archived from the original on June 9, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  5. "尤　权". Archived from the original on 2017-12-29. Retrieved 2017-12-29.
  6. Compare: "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. INTRODUCING THE COMMUNIST: October 4, 1939". Marxist.org. October 4, 1939. Archived from the original on 15 July 2018. Retrieved 21 May 2018. Although the united front was formed and has been maintained for three years now, the bourgeoisie, and especially the big bourgeoisie, has constantly been trying to destroy our Party, the big bourgeois capitulators and die-hards have been instigating serious friction throughout the country, and the anti-Communist clamour is incessant. All this is being used by the big bourgeois capitulators and die-hards to prepare the way for capitulating to Japanese imperialism, breaking up the united front and dragging China backwards. Ideologically, the big bourgeoisie is trying to "corrode" communism, whilst politically and organizationally it is trying to liquidate the Communist Party, the Border Region and the Party's armed forces.
  7. Lian, Yi-Zheng (21 May 2018). "China Has a Vast Influence Machine, and You Don't Even Know It". New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 May 2018. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
  8. Compare: "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. INTRODUCING THE COMMUNIST: October 4, 1939". Marxist.org. October 4, 1939. Archived from the original on 15 July 2018. Retrieved 21 May 2018. ... our eighteen years of experience have taught us that the united front, armed struggle and Party building are the Chinese Communist Party's three 'magic weapons', its three principal magic weapons for defeating the enemy in the Chinese revolution.
  9. New Approaches to the Study of Political Order in China, by Donald Clarke, Modern China, 2009.
  10. "IV. The System of Multi-Party Cooperation and Political Consultation". China.org.cn. Archived from the original on 2019-06-01. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
  11. Judicial politics as state-building, Zhu, Suli, Pp. 23–36 in Stéphanie Balme and Michael W. Dowdle (eds.), Building Constitutionalism in China.New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  12. Constitution of the People's Republic of China Archived 2016-02-06 at the Wayback Machine. The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China. Retrieved on 23 February 2018.
  13. Bowe, Alexander (August 24, 2018). "China's Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States" (PDF). United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 9, 2018. Retrieved May 12, 2019.

Further reading
  • James D. Seymour (1987), China's Satellite Parties, Routledge, ISBN 978-0873324120
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United Front (China)
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