The People’s Liberation Army in the Local People’s Congresses: What do the Delegates of the Local People’s Congresses Represent?

• In Event: Local Governance in Motion: Dynamics of Central-local Relationship in China

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to expose political functions of the delegates to the local people’s congresses in China. It focuses on the local people’s congress delegates selected from the circles of the People’s Liberations Army (PLA).
Earlier research on the delegates of the Chinese local people’s congresses focuses on this function of information gathering and reveals the delegates’ functions as agents, remonstrators, or representatives.
Using the data from the Jiangsu Province Yangzhou City People’s Congress from 1998 to 2015, this research examines how the information gathering function of the local people’s congresses has changed over the last decade or so. In particular, analyzing the contents of the bills submitted to the people’s congress by the delegates selected from the PLA circles, this research depicts how the PLA has gradually started expressing its demands through the people’s congresses over the last decade.
At the end of the 1990s, the PLA never submitted bills to the local peoples congresses. In regards to this reason, an individual familiar with the local people’s congresses responded that “even if the PLA had any demands it did not submit bills since it was able to solve these issues within its own system.” However, in the recent years, the PLA has been submitting its requests to the people’s congresses in the form of bills. This research explores the political meaning of the change in the relationship between the local people’s congresses and the PLA.

Author

• Tomoki Kamo, Keio University