It’s a once-in-a-decade exercise. Behind closed doors, deals are struck and broken, careers are bought and sold, battles are won and lost. When the white smoke finally rises from the conclave chimney, new kings are crowned and another layer of intervening leadership is added to one of the most opaque political systems in the world.
The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (第十八次黨代表大會) opened on 8 November and concluded less than a week later. Just as pundits had predicted, Xi Jinping (習近平), the rotund Beijing native and scion of a well-known party elder, emerged as the new paramount leader. To the rest of us on the other side of the door, the Party's National Congress is little more than an auditorium full of men (and an occasional woman) in black suits and red ties applauding on cue. Though that’s not far from the truth, exactly what the National Congress does and how it is different from similarly-named bodies like the National People’s Congress or NPC (人民代表大會) continue to elude us. Before we talk about the leadership change, we begin with a crash course on Chinese politics.
Chinese Politics 101
The National Congress is made up of 2,270 delegates from the Communist Party of China or CPC. With the CPC’s membership topping 83 million, the National Congress is a very exclusive club. Unlike the NPC, the National Congress is not a legislative body or even part of the government. It is simply the CPC’s own caucus that meets every five years to select and promote new party leaders. Think of it as the Republican National Convention in the U.S. that nominates a presidential candidate in an election year.