Functions and significance of the central leading group for comprehensively deepening reforms and the central comprehensively deepening reforms commission

ABSTRACT

This study examines the function and meaning of Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms (CDR Leading Group) and Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission (CDR Commission), created in the Xi Jinping administration, and discusses on their roles in policy making. This paper positions the CDR Leading Group and the CDR Commission as policy adjustment vehicles, analyzes them in terms of policy integration and administrative coordination, and examines whether they were created for organizational or policy purposes. Another perspective is how government agency coordination existing before the Xi Jinping administration changed. This study reveals the following. First, the CDR Group and the CDR Commission are organizations aimed at tackling new issues. Their activities demonstrate the leadership of Xi Jinping, who is at the top, and significantly contribute to establishing his own authority and strengthening his power base. Second, both the CDR Group and the CDR Commission have a multi-layered organizational structure, with the offices of the main body, special groups, and their offices playing a substantive role. In the economic field, for example, there is no change to the conventional coordination led by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance. Third, these are merely “ad hoc” mechanisms for advancing comprehensively deepening reforms that were the decision of the third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee.

KEYWORDS:

• The Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms
• The Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission
• coordination
• policy adjustment

1. Introduction

Xi Jinping is known as a dictatorial and powerful leader, demonstrating how he has full authority. But is this truly the case? This study examines the function and meaning of Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms (CDR Leading Group) and Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission (CDR Commission), created in the Xi Jinping administration, and discusses on their roles in policy making.

Research has been conducted on the CDR Group by Yang and Jiang as well as by Miller.¹ Yang and Jiang’s work, which used a wealth of Chinese-language literature, is particularly insightful. The CDR Group was established to raise the “dual top-level” mechanism in policy-making (top-level designs and top-level promotion) and strengthen top-level designs,² which will enable Xi Jinping to conduct the systematic reforms necessary to solve various problems that have accumulated since the Lehman shock of 2008. The appointment of the heads of the highest power structures to the committee has accelerated policy decision-making, borne the heavy responsibility of coordinating among these power structures, and sped up the response of government ministries and agencies and local governments to decisions.³ However, since there is no reference to specific cases, the decision mechanism for the CDR Group’s top-level designs is unclear. As such, the detailed composition of the group needs to be analyzed.

The reason for focusing on the CDR Leading Group and the CDR Commission is because they can be viewed as centralized at the top, with Xi Jinping.

At the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held in November 2013, Xi Jinping described the roles of the CDR Leading Group/CDR Commission as top-level design. However, their actual uses may be for policy adjustment. This paper positions the CDR Leading Group and the CDR Commission as policy adjustment vehicles, analyzes them in terms of policy integration and administrative coordination, and examines whether they were created for organizational or policy purposes.

Another perspective is how government agency coordination existing before the Xi Jinping administration changed. Do the CDR Leading Group and the CDR Commission have different roles? The greatest difference is that Xi Jinping himself took over as leader. How is Xi Jinping’s power as the leader of the CDR Commission used within the commission? Is it used to provide overall coordination involving all committee members? Or is it be used for policy adjustments, concentrating on specific policy areas of his interest?

2. Central leading group for comprehensively deepening reforms (CDR Leading Group)

The first Xi Jinping administration, which started in November 2013, adopted the “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform”⁴ at the 3rd Plenary Session of Central Committee held in November 2013. With this decision, 60 reforms were proposed for the Xi Jinping administration to address, including establishing the CDR Leading Group. The first CDR Leading Group meeting was held in January 2014, and 38 meetings were held by August 2017. This section discusses the CDR Leading Group’s role.

2.1. Structure

Xi Jinping (Party General Secretary) was appointed as its leader, and Li Keqiang (Premier of the State Council), Liu Yunshan (First Secretary of the Secretariat), and Zhang Gaoli (Vice President), members of Politburo Standing Committee, were appointed as deputy leaders. The members include the members of Political Bureau, Ma Gai, Wang Huning (Director of Central Policy Research Office), Liu Yandong, Liu Qibao, Xu Qiliang, Li Jianguo, Wang Yang, Meng Jianzhu, Zhao Leji, Li Zhanshu, Du Qinglin, Zhao HongZhu, Wang Zhen, Zhou Qiang, Zeng Jianming, Zhang Qingli, Zhou Xiaochuan, and Wang Zhengwei.

For the group’s secretariat office, Wang Huning was appointed as director; he also served as Secretary General of the CDR Leading Group. Mu Hong (Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission) was appointed as Executive Deputy Director, Pan Shengzhou (Deputy Director of the Central Policy Research Office) was appointed as Deputy Director, and Chen Yixin was appointed as Deputy Director for professional affairs.⁵

CDR Leading Group handled six major areas. Special groups were established for each reform (the organizations in parentheses refer to the department in charge).

1. Economic system and ecological civilization reform special group (Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs)

2. Democracy and legal system reform special group (Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission)

3. Cultural Reform Commission special group (Publicity Department)

4. Social system reform special group

5. Party Building System reform special group (Organization Department of the Central Committee)

6. Discipline inspection system reform special group (Central Commission for Discipline Inspection)

The roles of the special groups were (1) to work on a unified plan, (2) to focus on measures, (3) to ensure project completion, and (4) to conduct research and investigation.⁶ These special groups were assigned to 60 closely-related reforms.

For example, the Economic system and ecological civilization reform special group held three plenary sessions, three liaison meetings, 19 specialized meetings, and 32 coordination meetings on reform work in 2014. It organized five groups consisting of more than 60 people in more than 20 departments to conduct research on state-owned enterprise reform, and prepared a general report on the research.⁷ This indicates that (1) meetings were held on a regular basis, (2) meetings were held on a case-by-case basis, and (3) liaisons or main departments in charge coordinated with relevant departments.

However, such reports were rare and reveal little about the focus of each special group.

2.2. Leading group as a function

Why did Xi Jinping establish the CDR Leading Group? One reason for this is its function, another is political factors.

Usually, policy making is differentiated by top-down and bottom-up approaches. CDR Leading Group was assumed to have the function of top-level design. In other words, it was closer to a top-down approach. It was established as the highest-level entity to handle top-level design.

At the first meeting of the CDR Leading Group, Xi Jinping said, “Thoroughly implement the various reform measures proposed at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee.”⁸ Xi Jinping also mentioned strengthening of top-level design as follows: “The goal is to plan and design the economic system, political system, cultural system, social system, and ecological civilization system in a unified manner, strengthen the analysis and evaluation of each reform’s relevance, interconnect all bureaus and departments, interconnect the solution of peripheral problems with the solution of fundamental problems, and promote gradual progress with rapid breakthroughs with all-out efforts.”⁹ The CDR Leading Group served as the “command post” for reforms under the Xi Jinping administration.

Xi Jinping described the need for such a “command post” as follows: “The level of complexity, sensitivity, and difficulty of the reform process is nothing compared to what it was more than three decades ago. Some involve complex departmental interests, while or others the difficult lies in unifying the perception of ideology. Some must be involved with the ‘cheese’ (interest) of a few, while others require coordination with many parties and parallel implementation of multiple measures.”¹⁰He also stated that “we need to clarify the relationship between policy systems and specific policies, between systematic policy chains and partial policies, between top-level design of policies and their implementation at different levels, between policy uniformity and policy differentiation, and between long-term policies and incremental policies.”¹¹ This indicates that he expected the “command post” would be responsible for coordinating these relations.

Based on the above, CDR Leading Group was a strong “command post” for comprehensively deepening reforms. Simultaneously, the mechanism was established with the expectation it have responsibility for coordinating various interests.

2.3. Leading group as apolitical element

According to an article summarizing the activities of the CDR Leading Group in 2014,¹² it, “under the direct leadership of Party General Secretary Xi Jinping,” “regularly discussed major reform measures, improved the measures’ feasibility, operability, and the risk assessment process of existing problems, and clarified political and social stability goals.” So, what was the relationship with the existing Political Bureau, which seemed to play a similar role?

A total of 199 policy documents were discussed at the CDR Leading Group meetings, which were held 38 times by August 2017. After the discussions, 184 projects were adopted and 15 were not adopted. The process of adopting these documents can be divided into three major cases.

2.3.1. Case 1: “Discussed at the CDR Leading Group → Adopted at the Political Bureau meeting and the Politburo Standing Committee meeting”

Among the 15 documents that were only discussed, seven were discussed and adopted at the Political Bureau meeting and Politburo Standing Committee meeting after the CDR Leading Group meeting. Another seven cases were officially announced, although it is unclear what process they followed. One case cannot be confirmed as officially announced.

Regarding the seven cases discussed and adopted at the Political Bureau meeting and the Politburo Standing Committee meeting, the above-mentioned 2014 article stated: “major issues were referred to the Politburo Standing Committee meeting and the Political Bureau meeting, ensuring that the critical reforms were adequately debated and scientifically determined.”¹³ This means that these seven documents were about “major issues.”

Interestingly, the name of the documents that were only discussed was officially announced up to the 8th meeting of the CDR Leading Group but were no longer announced since the 9th meeting in January 2015. The reason for this change has not been officially explained. However, since then, occasionally only discussions took place at CDR Leading Group meetings. Examples include the policy document “Framework opinions concerning some issues of comprehensive deepening of public security reform” issued by the Central Committee on February 152,015 and related reform plans. It is explained that this was adopted “under the ‘lead’ of the CDR Leading Group and the ‘guidance’ of the central judicial system reform leading group,” after discussions by the Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms of the Ministry of Public Security, the CDR Leading Group meeting, and the Politburo Standing Committee meeting.¹⁴

In addition, that Policy document “Opinions concerning deepening of the mechanism reform of the human resources development system” issued by Central Committee on March 212,016, was also discussed at the Organization Department of the Central Committee meeting in 2014, followed by the Party Building System reform special group meeting of the CDR Leading Group, the CDR Leading Group meeting, and the Politburo Standing Committee meeting.¹⁵

Based on the above, the Political Bureau seemed to have the authority to adopt reforms involving fundamental political, economic, and social systems.

2.3.2. Case 2: “No discussion in the CDR Leading Group, adopted at the meetings of Political Bureau and Politburo Standing Committee”

The Political Bureau meeting on June 302,014 discussed and adopted the “implementation measures for party discipline inspection system reform” and “implementation measures for party building system reform” on August 292,014. These two documents were directly related to the special group. Nevertheless, no report indicates it was discussed at the CDR Leading Group meeting, only that it was discussed and adopted at the Political Bureau meeting. However, it was also reported that the “Implementation measures for deepening cultural system reform,” a document directly related to the special group, was discussed and adopted at the second meeting of the CDR Leading Group in February 2014.

Party discipline inspection system reform and party building system reform are extremely important matters that affect the very nature of the party. Therefore, these appear to have been discussed and adopted at the Political Bureau meeting without going through the CDR Leading Group meeting.

2.3.3. Case 3: the relationship between the CDR Leading Group and the Political Bureau seen in ecological civilization reform

Next, we examine the relationship between the CDR Leading Group and the Political Bureau, using the ecological civilization reform as an example.

Since the third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee advocated “Accelerating ecological civilization construction,” ecological civilization reform became one of the important projects of the CDR Leading Group. “The Report on critical reform by economic system and ecological civilization reform special group” was adopted at the second meeting in February 2014. Subsequently, Xi Jinping issued directives on water resources protection at the fifth meeting of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs on 14 March 2014, and on ecological civilization construction at the Politburo Standing Committee meeting on 25 December 2014, respectively. On 24 March 2015, the Political Bureau meeting adopted an important policy document, “Opinions concerning accelerating the promotion of ecological civilization construction.”

The 14th meeting of the CDR Leading Group in July 2014 discussed the direction and goals of ecological civilization reform, and adopted “The scheme for environmental protection supervision (for trial implementation),” “The scheme for building the ecological environment monitoring network,” “The scheme for the trial of a natural resource assets departure audit on leading cadres,” and “Measures for the accountability of party and government leaders for damage to the ecological environment (for trial implementation).” On September 11, the Political Bureau meeting adopted the “master plan for ecological civilization reform” and stated that “the CDR Leading Group Office, the economic system, and the ecological civilization reform special group must strengthen their unified planning and coordination.”

In March 2016, as specific policy documents, the 22nd meeting of the CDR Leading Group adopted “Opinions on improving the compensation mechanism for ecological protection.” In June 2016, the 25th meeting adopted “Opinions on establishing a unified and standardized national ecological civilization pilot zone” and “national ecological civilization pilot zone (Fujian) implementation program.” In August, the 27th meeting adopted “Measures for the preparation and implementation of negative lists for industry access in key ecological function zones,” “Measures for assessment and evaluating the objectives of ecological civilization construction” and “Report on the development of the trial of reforming the compensation system for ecological and environmental damage in some provinces.” In November, the 29th meeting adopted “The scheme for reforms to build an agricultural compensation system oriented toward green ecology” and “Some opinions concerning the establishment and strict adherence to the ecological protection line.”

The case of ecological civilization reform shows that the Political Bureau meetings, under the direction of Xi Jinping, adopted important policy documents and that the CDR Leading Group was responsible for their creation and the coordination and formulation of concrete policies.

3. Significance of CDR Leading Group

The above shows the following points about CDR Leading Group.

First, the six reform areas addressed by the CDR Leading Group differed in the process of adopting policy documents. Reforms involving fundamental political, economic, and social institutions were adopted by the Political Bureau meeting after discussions by the CDR Leading Group meeting. Since the party’s Discipline Inspection System and Party Building System reforms were extremely important matters that related to the Party itself, they were adopted by the Political Bureau meeting without being discussed at the CDR Leading Group meeting.

Second, important policy documents were adopted by the Political Bureau meetings under the direction of Xi Jinping, and the CDR Leading Group was responsible for their creation and the formulation and coordination of specific policies. It indicates that the CDR Leading Group was a subordinate mechanism of the Political Bureau.

However, it was the special group that served the function of policy making and coordination. Other than the social system reform special group, the special groups were actually led by the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Public Affairs Department, the Organization Department of the Central Committee, and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Not only is there no discernible difference between the special group and the existing party departments, but its functions were merely those that the existing party departments served since before the CDR Leading Group’s establishment. This indicates that the existence of the CDR Leading Group and its discussions were mere formalities. The work required for discussions at the CDR Leading Group meetings took substantial time and effort.

The CDR Group plays an important role in achieving top-level design. However, the CDR Group is a multi-layered organization comprising a committee body composed of members, an office, special groups, and its office. “Mere formalities” specifically refers to committee bodies composed of committee members and does not imply that the CDR Group itself is meaningless. Rather, this indicates that special groups and their offices play a substantial role in achieving top-level design.

Nevertheless, Xi Jinping established the CDR Leading Group positioning himself as its leader. There appear to be political reasons behind this, other than the functional reasons that Xi Jinping stated at its beginning. Since the existing organization was heavily influenced by its predecessors and rivals, Xi Jinping set up his own “command post” for political management, to renew the past.¹⁶ Former Communist Party leaders also had a history of setting up new power structures to eliminate the influence of rivals and establish their own power bases.¹⁷ Xi Jinping, who had no strong power base within the Political Bureau since his appointment as Party General Secretary, set up the CDR Leading Group to avoid discussion at the Political Bureau meeting and to finish coordinating policy documents in advance. It then became a mechanism to show off his leadership. He aimed to strengthen the role and influence of the Office.

3.1. Central comprehensively deepening reforms commission (CDR Commission)

The second Xi Jinping administration, inaugurated in October 2017, reorganized the CDR Leading Group into the CDR Commission. The first meeting was held in March, and 23 meetings were held by December 2021. This section discusses the role of the CDR Commission.

3.1.1. Reasons for title change

In March 2018, the Central Committee of the Party announced a plan to deepen the institutional reform of the party and the state. This was an institutional reform proposal to strengthen the leadership of the party. In this reform, not only was the CDR Group changed to the CDR Committee, but the names of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs and the Central Foreign Affairs Leading Group were also changed to the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission and the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, respectively.

Therefore, the significance of the name change from the CDR Group to the CDR Committee should be understood in the broad sense of changing the name from the Leading Small Group to the Committee. This can be said to involve a change in roles. The Leading Small Group is a parliamentary coordination body, and the Committee is the specialized decision-making body. Therefore, the Xi Jinping administration is thought to have changed the names to strengthen the top-layer design.

3.1.2. Structure

Xi Jinping was appointed its leader, and Li Keqiang of the Politburo Standing Committee, Wang Huning (Executive Secretary of the Secretariat), and Han Zheng (Executive Vice Premier) were appointed deputy leaders.

Those who were appointed members also had other positions outside of the committee, as was the case with the Leading Group. Six special groups similar to the Leading Group were established as subordinate organizations.

3.1.3. Analysis of discussed and adopted policy documents

To clarify the role of the CDR Commission, we analyzed the size of the departments and the classification of sectors related to the policy documents adopted in the 23 meetings There are 190 documents analyzed (Figure 1). We exclude documents that are not policy-related, such as regulations and activity reports related to the CDR Commission.

Figure 1. Shows the number of policy documents adopted.

Source: Figure created by author (Created by the author from various news media reports).

Since the 11th meeting, there has been a significant decrease. The average number of documents per meeting was 11.3 from the first meeting (2018.3) to the 10th meeting (2019.9.) However, the number of documents from the 11th (2019.11) to the 17th (2020.12) was 6.7 and from the 18th (2021.2) to the 23rd (2021.12) was 5.

At the third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held in November 2013, Xi Jinping said, “It had to plan the tasks according to the timetable, which set forth that, by 2020, decisive results were to have been achieved in the reform of important areas and crucial segments,”¹⁸envisioning that the year 2020 would be the transition.

Since the goals set by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee in 2020 were achieved, the role of the Committee must have been changed for the 18th meeting and after.

Therefore, adopting documents at the CDR Commission meetings can be divided into three period: the first to 10th meetings can be classified as the first period, the 11th to 17th meetings (2020.12) as the second period, and the 18th to 23rd meetings as the third period.

Next, we focused on the relation between the special groups and the adopted documents. Approximately 55% of all documents are related to the Economic system and ecological civilization reform special group, and the proportions do not vary among the among periods. The next most common documents are related to the social system reform special group. In the first period, those equaled 10.6%. However, in the second period, this jumped to 31.9%, and in the third period, it accounted for 20% of the total.

The Democracy and Legal System Reform Special Group and the Cultural Reform Commission Special Group had around then cases in the first period, but only two cases in the second and third periods. By contrast, there were five documents related to the Party Building System reform special group in the first period, but only one document each in the second and third periods. There was no case for the Discipline inspection system reform special group.

Based on the above, the documents adopted by the CDR Commission can be broadly classified into economic and social. What policy documents were adopted?

Table 1 shows the number of adopted documents classified by term. The top five areas were science and technology, health care, agriculture and rural areas, education, and the environment.

Table 1. The number of adopted documents classified by term.

	1–10	11–17	18–23	Total
science and technology	8	1	4	13
health care	5	4	3	12
agriculture and rural areas	6	3	2	11
education	10	7	3	20
the environment	6	7	3	16

Source: Table created by author (Created by the author from various news media reports).

The total of these five fields was 35 cases in the first period, or 30% of the total, but the proportions increased to 46.8% in the second period and to 50.0% in the third period.

This change in the number of cases suggests that the role of the CDR Commission had different meanings at different times.

The reasons for this vary from one field to another. The science and technology sector attracted attention as a new driving force in response to economic stagnation. The 15th Five-Year Plan, which began in 2021, focused on innovation. The healthcare sector was urged to respond to COVID-19 infections, which became more serious from 2019 onwards. For agriculture and rural areas, the deadline for achieving the “Battle Against Poverty,” which aims to reduce the poverty rate to zero, was set for the end of 2020. Therefore, it strengthened its efforts to achieve an affluent society free from poverty.¹⁹ The education sector reflects the Xi Jinping administration’s strong desire to achieve the “common prosperity” policy to reduce education’s economic burden.

These policies feature two major trends. One is the emphasis on the people’s concern for food, clothing, housing, education, health care, and aging. The second is “internalizing” or “mainstreaming” policy ideas on late-breaking areas such as environmental issues and scientific and technological innovation to government agencies other than those with jurisdiction.

We also looked at the contents of the adopted documents and the entities issuing them. Central Committee/State Council and State Council issued 19 cases in the first period, but the number dropped to seven in the second period and to three in the third period. The “General Office of the Central Committee/General Office of the State Council,” “General Office of the Central Committee” and “General Office of the State Council” also showed a downward trend, with 41 cases in the first period, 15 in the second period, and 12 in the third period. The number of “departments” also showed a decreasing trend, with 24 cases in the first period, eight cases in the second period, and four cases in the third period. The absence of a “Central Committee/State Council” after 2020 suggests that only practical documents were handled.

What appeared since the second period is issuing documents in response to urgent matters. These include the spread of COVID-19 starting in 2019, the U.S.-China conflict that has gradually escalated since 2018, and the promotion of science and technology, a central goal of the 14th Five-Year Plan starting in 2021, a response to the slow economic growth.

Regarding “Some opinions on reforming and completing the institutional mechanisms and strengthening the security and stockpile management of strategic and emergency supplies,” adopted at the 21 meeting of the CDR Commission on 30 August 2021, there has been no coherent law on the stockpiling of emergency supplies. Provisions for strategic materials stockpiling and use were scattered throughout the relevant departmental regulations and normative statements. Problems such as dispersion of legislation, low legislative rank, and slow legislation were exposed. “Many legislation” conflicted with some provisions and failed to highlight various resource areas.

Urgent requirements that could not wait for legislation have been discussed at the CDR Commission, not at the Political Bureau meeting or at the National People’ s Congress. What originally required legislation have never been legislated but have become policy documents.

3.2. Scale of policy adjustment

How has Xi Jinping’s power as the CDR Commission leader been used within the commission? Is it used to provide overall coordination involving all members of the committee? Or is it used for policy adjustments, concentrating on specific policy areas of his interest?

Table 1 shows the number of departments appearing in the adopted documents, divided into (1) more than 5 departments, (2) 2–4 departments, and (3) 1 department. The more departments that appear, the more policy adjustments are necessary. Those with no identified policy document were excluded.

Documents with more than five divisions were 27 out of 113 cases from the first to the 10th, or 23.9% of the total. But after the 11th, there were only ten of 77 cases, or 13%. By contrast, there are always a certain number of documents involving only one department. However, since the 11th meeting, a higher proportion of documents from a single department were accounted for in each meeting, with 35 cases, or 45.5% of the total.

Here again, the CDR Commission’s role has changed since the 11th meeting. Its role in the first period, when a substantial proportion of more than five departments appeared, was coordination. The decline in that proportion from the second period onward implies a decline in the CDR Commission’s coordinating role. This means that it has focused on coordinating policy areas of strong interest, and Xi Jinping’s use of the CDR Commission has focused on specific policy areas of interest.

So, is there a department that is more likely to be involved in the CDR Commission? We identified the relevant departments of the adopted documents and examined the number of cases per meeting for the top three bodies: National Development and Reform Commission; Ministry of Finance; and Ministry of Ecology and Environment (Figures 2 and 3).

Among the 190 policy documents adopted, 53, or 27.9%, are related to the National Development and Reform Commission. The Ministry of Finance is next with 37 cases or 19.5%. However, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has only 12 cases, or 6.3%. The involvement of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance is by far the most significant.

Figure 2. The number of cases per meeting for the three bodies.

Source: Figure created by author (Created by the author from various news media reports).

Figure 3. Percentage of cases per meeting for the three bodies.

Source: Figure created by author (Created by the author from various news media reports).

However, their number varies depending on the periods. The National Development and Reform Commission had 44 cases in the first and second periods, but only nine in the third period. Ministry of Finance also had 31 cases in the first and second periods, but only six cases in the third period. Ministry of Ecology and Environment had seven cases in the first period, but only four cases in total in the second and third periods. There is variation from period to period, and the decrease since the second period overlaps with the overall trend.

It is clear from this that the CDR Leading Group/CDR Commission is not in charge of policy formulation. The CDR Leading Group and CDR Commission are merely a formality in approving policy proposals.

Thus, the more government agencies and departments involved, the higher the level of coordination required, and policy adjustment has become politicized. The offices established in the CDR Leading Group and the CDR Commission played this role. However, we do not know what procedures were used to make the adjustments. Moreover, the Central Policy Research Office does not appear to have the capacity to coordinate. To make the Office of CDR Leading Group’s coordinating function effective, someone with a high rank, Wang Huning, a member of the Political Bureau, had to be appointed as the director of the Office.

Wang Huning, who was promoted as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, was reappointed to this upgraded position, the director of the Office of the CDR Commission. However, it is natural to assume that this was owing to Xi Jinping’s high degree of trust in Wang Huning, regardless of the upgraded post within the Party, as the director of the Office.

The mechanism may have been to mobilize the department around the director of the Office whose position is higher than a member of the Political Bureau. Much of the document formulation was performed by existing influential government agencies, notably the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance, and there has been no change from the previous situation.

3.3. Declining role of the CDR Commission

These analyses indicate that the role of the CDR Commission has been weakened after Xi Jinping strengthened his power base in his second term.

As background, he took control of the Political Bureau at the 19th National Congress in October 2017, with 18 of the 25 members of the Political Bureau, including 11 of his own subordinates from his provincial days. Stabilizing the regime’s base would allow Xi Jinping to control policy decisions without having to go through the CDR Commission.

In March 2018, the CDR Group was renamed a Commission along with the other Leading Small Groups. However, the CDR Group is an organization established in 2014 with the specific purpose of undertaking the 60 reforms raised by the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2013. Other Leading Small Groups have had a long history of institutionalization and were required to make specialized decisions. Therefore, the CDR Group and other Leading Small Groups should be differentiated because, although they were similar in that they changed their names to Committees, their reasons for existence were very different. In that sense, the CDR Committee, after changing its name, essentially became an ad-hoc organization whereby it aims to carry out the 60 reforms proposed at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, and there is no great difference between the CDR Group and the CDR Committee. Therefore, after 2020 (after the 60 reforms had been realized), the direction of the CDR Committee has been unclear, making it difficult to distinguish it from the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission. This can be said to indicate a decline in the role of the CDR Committee.

4. Conclusion

This study has clarified the following matters. First, the CDR Group and the CDR Committee were established to address new issues that the existing Leading Small Groups and central government agencies could not deal with. This was an organizational matter of supplementing the existing organization.

Second, there was success in creating an image in which the CDR Group and the CDR Committee play the role of a “control tower” for the top-level design and coordination of interests. This demonstrates the leadership of Xi Jinping, who is at the top of the organization, and it greatly contributed to establishing his own authority and strengthening his power base. However, both the CDR Group and the CDR Committee had a multi-layered organizational structure, and the real roles were played by the office of the main body, the specialized groups, and their offices. In the economic field, for example, there is no change to the conventional coordination led by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance.

Third, the name change from CDR Group to CDR Committee does not change the role of the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee to advance the 60 proposed reforms. In approximately a decade, no organizational growth has been seen in terms of Xi Jinping’s goal of top-level design since the transformation of the CDR Group into the CDR Committee. Furthermore, the role of the CDR Committee after 2000, after the 60 reforms, is unclear. It can be said that the CDR Group was nothing more than an “ad-hoc” organization set up to advance the 60 reforms of the CDR Committee.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Norihiko Sasaki

Norihiro Sasaki is Professor at Department of International Relations, National Defense Academy.

Notes

^1. Yang and Jiang, “The ‘Dual Top-Level’ Mechanism in China’s Policy Process,” 102–116; Miller, “The CCP Central Committee’s Leading Small Groups,” 1–21; Miller, “More Already on the CCP Central Committee’s Leading Small Groups,” 1–8.

^2. Yang and Jiang, “The ‘Dual Top-Level’ Mechanism in China’s Policy Process,” 102–103.

^3. Ibid., 107.

^4. “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform.”

^5. “Wenzhou Municipal Party Secretary Transferred to the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Office Full-time Deputy Director.”

^6. People’s Daily, January 23, 2014.

^7. “Review of Comprehensively Deepening the Reforms of Economic System and Ecological Civilization.”

^8. People’s Daily, January 23, 2014.

^9. Xi, “Discourse on a Visit to Guangdong Province.”; Xi, “Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform,” 56.

^10. Xi, “Discourse at the Second Meeting of the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.”; and Xi, “Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform,” 69.

^11. Xi, “Discourse at the Seminar of Key Leading Officials at the Provincial and Departmental Levels on Learning and Implementing the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee and the Comprehensive Deepening of Reform.”; and Xi, “Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform,” 247.

^12. 「九万里风鹏正挙――以习近平同志为总书记的党中央深改元年工作述评」[Chinese] (The Dapeng soars up to the sky——commenting on the activities of the Party Central Committee in its first year of deepening reform, with Comrade Xi Jinping as general secretary). People’s Daily, January 28, 2015.

^13. People’s Daily, January 28, 2015.

^14. People’s Daily, February 16, 2015.

^15. “Accelerate the Establishment of the Institutional Mechanism for Gathering Talents.”

^16. The transfer of Chen Yixin, Secretary of Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee, to a deputy director of CDR Leading Group Office (made public on December 1, 2015), was an appointment of Zhejiang connections from Xi Jinping’s former tenure and also part of the organizational strengthening.

^17. Zhu Rongji, who became Vice Premier of the State Council in 1991, established the Economic and Trade Office under the State Council, which was later reorganized into the State Economic and Trade Commission, in opposition to the State Planning Commission, to eliminate the influence of Premier Li Peng, and promoted state-owned enterprise reform. Jiang Zemin established the central committee for large industrial enterprises in 1998 to take the lead in state-owned enterprise reform from Zhu Rongji. (Sasaki, “Developing State-Owned Enterprises: China’s state-owned enterprise reforms in the 1990s Revisited,” 95–114). In February 1980, Zhao Ziyang was selected as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, including his appointment as Premier. The following March, the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs was reestablished, and he became its leader. The Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs then became the central organization for Zhao Ziyang’s economic management (Zhao, Bao, Chian, and Ignatius, “The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang,” 357–360).

^18. “Explanatory Notes for the ‘Decision of the CCCPC on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform.’”

^19. State Council Information Office, “Poverty Alleviation: China’s Experience and Contribution.”