1,412,910,000 people
Source: Tyranny Tracker
HRF classifies China as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the sole ruling party and retains absolute control over all branches of government. Incumbent President and CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping began his third term in March 2023 after successfully abolishing the presidential term limits in 2018 prescribed by the Constitution, without opposition.
Xi’s regime is characterized by his political vision, dubbed the “Chinese Dream,” which centers on making China a global powerhouse and revitalizing its national pride through the strengthening of party discipline. As a result, under his leadership, the regime has dramatically scaled up its repression of dissenting voices, both domestically and overseas. Additionally, part of Xi’s rhetoric is to turn China into a homogenous nation-state, which the regime has endeavored to achieve through the systematic repression of ethnic and religious minorities, including, but not limited to, Uyghurs and other ethnic Turkic Muslims, Tibetans, and Christians.
National elections are absent, rendering moot any assessment of electoral competition. The General Secretary of the CCP, appointed from among and by the party’s most powerful elites known as the Politburo Standing Committee, automatically becomes the President of China. The national legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), is indirectly elected by people’s congresses at local levels.
Civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. While repression of dissent has long been a hallmark of the CCP’s leadership, it has escalated under President Xi Jinping, both within and outside the country. His regime has operated large-scale influence operations online and offline to skew China-related narratives in the regime’s favor, often with assistance from regime-affiliated non-state actors such as hired cybertroops, foreign individuals, and even foreign states. Regime retaliation against dissidents is well-documented and is conducted through a variety of means, including imprisonment, surveillance, movement restrictions, and forced psychiatric care. The regime systematically undermines the ability of marginalized groups, particularly Tibetans and Uyghurs, to dissent. Furthermore, the regime operates one of the world’s largest transnational repression networks that enables it to intimidate, censor, and retaliate against thousands of dissidents abroad.
Institutions largely or completely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. All branches of government operate within the framework of the party-state and enjoy no formal separation of powers. Judicial personnel are closely vetted for loyalty. Judges are also restricted in their ability to decide on politically sensitive cases. The regime has carried out sweeping purges of senior officials to reinforce obedience towards the leadership and combat corruption.
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