Politics
Like virtually all governing institutions in mainland China, the politics of Shanghai is structured in a dual party-government system, in which the Communist Party Chief, officially termed the Communist Party of China Shanghai Municipal Committee Secretary (currently Yu Zhengsheng), outranks the Mayor (currently Han Zheng).
Political power in Shanghai is widely seen as a stepping stone to higher positions in the national government. Since Jiang Zemin became the national party chief in June 1989, all but one former Shanghai party chief was elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee, the de facto highest decision-making body in China, including Jiang Zemin (General secretary and President), Zhu Rongji (Premier), Wu Bangguo (Chairman of the National People's Congress), Huang Ju (Vice Premier), and Xi Jinping (Vice President). Zeng Qinghong, a former deputy party chief of Shanghai, also rose to the Politburo Standing Committee and became the Vice President and an influential power broker. The only exception is Chen Liangyu, who was fired in 2006 and later convicted of corruption. Officials with ties to the Shanghai administration form a powerful faction in the national government, the so-called Shanghai Clique, which often competes against the rival Youth League Faction over personnel appointments and policy decisions: Xi Jinping, the presumptive successor to Hu Jintao as General Secretary and President, is a compromise candidate between the two groups with supporters in both camps.
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Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The real grounds of difference upon important political questions no longer correspond with party lines.... Politics is no longer the topic of this country. Its important questions are settled... Great minds hereafter are to be employed on other matters.... Government no longer has its ancient importance.... The people’s progress, progress of every sort, no longer depends on government. But enough of politics. Henceforth I am out more than ever.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The word “revolution” itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the “revolution” of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the “revolving door” of a politics which has “liberated” women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)