This concluding chapter outlines the contours of the Party-state and develops a conceptual framework to explain its distinctive mode of governance. At its core is a dual normative system: a legal system grounded in popular sovereignty is overseen and constrained by a power-based normative system designed to uphold the absolute authority of the Party Center—an organizing principle essential to maintaining the structural integrity of the Party-state. The chapter argues that the governance logic of the Party-state is best captured by the theory of Normalized Political Prerogative (NPP). According to this theory, governance unfolds through a three-step process: operationalization, normalization, and regulation. Together, these constitute the formal institutional foundation of Party-state rule. The NPP framework elucidates the systemic proliferation of corruption as an inherent byproduct of this mode of governance, the role of the Party’s disciplinary apparatus as a self-correcting mechanism to mitigate its adverse effects, and the evolving dynamics between institutions and leadership that shape politicking and power struggles within the Politburo.

In this chapter, I survey major historical cases to examine different paradigms under which a disciplinary action against a Politburo member could be launched and how these paradigms were observed, abandoned, or changed over time. I find two prominent paradigms. One is a highly ideologized model developed during the Yan’an Rectification Campaign in 1941-1942. This model enables the winning party to conduct a purge of its adversaries with broad scope and impact, while reinforcing Party unity. It also has several disadvantages, including heightened social disruption, excessive purging, and the exposure of divisions in the Party leadership. The other is the de-ideologized corruption model. The paradigm shift was spurred by the political crisis of 1989, attributed at least in part to the exposure of an ideological split at the Party Center. Another reason for the shift was the introduction of the age-limit norm, which provided an alternative mechanism to facilitate peaceful exits of Politburo members in a regular and predictable manner. Under Xi Jinping's rule, the utility of the corruption model has been maximized. At the same time, the resulting power shakeup led to widespread political resentment, which, in turn, triggered the politicization of the corruption model.

As reports of mass famine turned from a trickle to a flood in 1960, the leadership slowly realized that the party had made a mistake of historical proportion. According to Ministry of Public Security data, 675 counties and cities had death rates exceeding 2 percent of population in the early 1960s, compared to the normal 1 percent or so. In forty counties, mainly in Anhui, Sichuan, Henan, Guizhou, and Qinghai, the death rates exceeded 10 percent of the population (Yang et al. 2012: 395). Economists and demographers estimate that the Great Leap Forward caused sixteen to thirty million unnatural deaths in the early 1960s (Kung and Lin 2003). The policy of using confiscated grain to finance a rapid buildup of industrial capacity championed by Mao and his colleagues had led to one of the greatest man-made disasters in the twentieth century.

In mid-1975, a sickly Mao had one of the last meetings with the Politburo. During the meeting, Mao shook hands with the entire Politburo, probably for the last time in his life. When he greeted alternate Politburo member and Vice Premier Wu Guixian, Mao confessed, “I don’t know who you are.” An embarrassed Wu said, “Chairman, we met in 1964 during the national day parade.” Mao compounded her embarrassment by responding, “I didn’t know that” (Mao 1975).

This final chapter looks closely at the Nineteenth Party Congress in 2017. This was a remarkable congress; there had not been such extensive personnel change since Deng Xiaoping took over from Hua Guofeng. Of greatest significance was the personalization of power as Xi elevated two allies to the Politburo who had never served on the Central Committee, as well as four other allies who were promoted from the alternate list of the Central Committee. China had generally avoided such “helicopter promotions” since the Maoist period, but here they were again, underlining the lack of institutionalization and the inability of party institutions to constrain Xi. At the same time, we have seen a renewed emphasis on ideology, combined with nationalism, as Xi has sought to reinvigorate Leninism. Can such a reinvigorated Leninism successfully fight the pathologies looked at in Chapter 4?