This study investigates the process of writing Party Congress reports of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the 17th Party Congress in 2007 to the 20th Party Congress in 2022 by focusing on the roles of general party secretary and collecting opini...
This study investigates the process of writing Party Congress reports of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the 17th Party Congress in 2007 to the 20th Party Congress in 2022 by focusing on the roles of general party secretary and collecting opinions. This study finds that the general party secretary plays a crucial role in deciding themes and frames of the reports at the initial stage of writing reports. The general party secretary can influence policy orientation of the report by deciding which agenda would be included. While the processes of writing 17th, 18th, and 19th reports of Party Congress were under the leadership of the Politburo Standing Committees, that of 20th report was under the leadership of Xi Jinping. This suggests that Xi Jinping became more powerful in 2022 than five years ago. The CCP tries to collect opinions from party members and non-party members in the process of writing reports of Party Congress to increase its legitimacy. It appears that these opinions play a limited role in revising drafts of Party Congress reports.