For more than 2,000 years, the Chinese political system has been built around a highly sophisticated centralised bureaucracy, which has run what has always been a vast society through top-down methods. What China never developed was a rule of law; an independent legal institution that would limit the discretion of the government. What the Chinese substituted for formal checks on power was a bureaucracy bound by rules and customs that made its behaviour reasonably predictable, and a Confucian moral system that educated leaders to look to public interests rather than their own aggrandisement. This system is, in essence, the same one that operates today, with the Communist party taking the role of emperor.
The issue Chinese governments have never been able to solve is what was historically known as the “bad emperor” problem: while unchecked power in the hands of a benevolent and wise ruler has many advantages, how do you guarantee a supply of good emperors? The Confucian educational system and mandarinate was supposed to indoctrinate leaders, but every now and then terrible ones would emerge, such as “the evil Empress Wu”, who killed off much of the Tang dynasty aristocracy, or the Ming dynasty’s Wanli Emperor, who in a fit of pique refused to come out of his palace or sign documents for nearly a decade.
In the view of many Chinese, the last bad emperor to rule China was Mao Zedong, who unleashed unspeakable suffering on the people, and whose power could not be checked until his death in 1976. The current rules governing decision-making and leadership at the very top of the party reflect this experience: responsibility is shared among the nine members of the standing committee of the politburo; there are 10-year term limits on the tenure of the president and prime minister; no one over the age of 67 can be considered for membership on the standing committee. These rules were designed to prevent the rise of another Mao, who could use his personal authority to dominate the party and the country. China’s authoritarian system is thus distinct because it follows rules regarding term limits and succession.