Constitution of the People's Republic of China

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The Constitution of the People's Republic of China (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国宪法; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國憲法; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó Xiànfǎ) is nominally the supreme law within the People's Republic of China. The current version was adopted by the 5th National People's Congress on December 4, 1982, with further revisions in 1988, 1993, 1999, and 2004. Three previous state constitutions—those of 1954, 1975, and 1978—were superseded in turn. The current constitution is China's twelfth constitution since 1911.[1] See a timeline of all previous constitutions and amendments here. The Constitution has five sections which are the preamble, general principles, fundamental rights and duties of citizens, structure of the state (which includes such state organs as the National People's Congress, the State Council, the Local People's Congress and Local People's Governments and the People's Courts and the People's Procuratorates), the national flag and the emblems of the state.


The first Constitution of the People's Republic of China was declared in 1954. After two intervening versions enacted in 1975 and 1978, the current Constitution was declared in 1982. There were significant differences between each of these versions, and the 1982 Constitution has subsequently been amended several times. In addition, changing Constitutional conventions have led to significant changes in the structure of Chinese government in the absence of changes in the text of the Constitution.

1982 document[edit]

The 1982 document reflects Deng Xiaoping's determination to lay a lasting institutional foundation for domestic stability and modernization. The new State Constitution provides a legal basis for the broad changes in China's social and economic institutions and significantly revises government structure.

There have been four major revisions by the National People's Congress (NPC) to the 1982 Constitution.

Much of the PRC Constitution is modeled after the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union, but there are some significant differences. For example, while the Soviet constitution contains an explicit right of secession, the Chinese constitution explicitly forbids secession. While the Soviet constitution formally creates a federal system, the Chinese constitution formally creates a unitary multi-national state.

The 1982 State Constitution is a lengthy, hybrid document with 138 articles.[2] Large sections were adapted directly from the 1978 constitution, but many of its changes derive from the 1954 constitution. Specifically, the new Constitution de-emphasizes class struggle and places top priority on development and on incorporating the contributions and interests of non-party groups that can play a central role in modernization.

Article 1 of the State Constitution describes China as "a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship"[3] meaning that the system is based on an alliance of the working classes—in communist terminology, the workers and peasants—and is led by the Communist Party, the vanguard of the working class. Elsewhere, the Constitution provides for a renewed and vital role for the groups that make up that basic alliance—the CPPCC, democratic parties, and mass organizations. The 1982 Constitution expunges almost all of the rhetoric associated with the Cultural Revolution incorporated in the 1978 version. In fact, the Constitution omits all references to the Cultural Revolution and restates Mao Zedong's contributions in accordance with a major historical reassessment produced in June 1981 at the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee, the "Resolution on Some Historical Issues of the Party since the Founding of the People's Republic."

There also is emphasis throughout the 1982 State Constitution on socialist law as a regulator of political behavior. Unlike the 1977 Soviet Constitution, the text of the Constitution itself doesn't explicitly mention the Communist Party of China and there is an explicit statement in Article 5 that states that the Constitution and law are supreme over all organizations and individuals.

Thus, the rights and obligations of citizens are set out in detail far exceeding than provided in the 1978 constitution. Probably because of the excesses that filled the years of the Cultural Revolution, the 1982 Constitution gives even greater attention to clarifying citizens' "fundamental rights and duties" than the 1954 constitution did, like the right to vote and to run for election begins at the age of eighteen except for those disenfranchised by law. The Constitution also guarantees the freedom of religious worship as well as the "freedom not to believe in any religion" and affirms that "religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination."


Among the political rights granted by the constitution, all Chinese citizens have rights to elect and be elected.[5] According to the later promulgated election law, rural residents had only 1/4 vote power of townsmen (formerly 1/8). As Chinese citizens are categorized into rural resident and town resident, and the constitution has no stipulation of freedom of transference, those rural residents are restricted by the Hukou (registered permanent residence) and have less rights on politics, economy and education. This problem has largely been addressed with various and ongoing reforms of Hukou in 2007.[citation needed] The foresaid ratio of vote power has been readjusted to 1:1 by an amendment to the election law passed in March 2010.[6]

The 1982 State Constitution is also more specific about the responsibilities and functions of offices and organs in the state structure. There are clear admonitions against familiar Chinese practices that the reformers have labeled abuses, such as concentrating power in the hands of a few leaders and permitting lifelong tenure in leadership positions. On the other hand, the constitution strongly oppose the western system of separation of powers by executive, legislature and judicial. It stipulates the NPC as the highest organ of state authority power, under which the State Council, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall be elected and responsible for the NPC.

In addition, the 1982 Constitution provides an extensive legal framework for the liberalizing economic policies of the 1980s. It allows the collective economic sector not owned by the state a broader role and provides for limited private economic activity. Members of the expanded rural collectives have the right "to farm private plots, engage in household sideline production, and raise privately owned livestock." The primary emphasis is given to expanding the national economy, which is to be accomplished by balancing centralized economic planning with supplementary regulation by the market.

Another key difference between the 1978 and 1982 state constitutions is the latter's approach to outside help for the modernization program. Whereas the 1978 constitution stressed "self-reliance" in modernization efforts, the 1982 document provides the constitutional basis for the considerable body of laws passed by the NPC in subsequent years permitting and encouraging extensive foreign participation in all aspects of the economy. In addition, the 1982 document reflects the more flexible and less ideological orientation of foreign policy since 1978. Such phrases as "proletarian internationalism" and "social imperialism" have been dropped.

2004 Amendments[edit]

The Constitution was amended on March 14, 2004 to include guarantees regarding private property ("legally obtained private property of the citizens shall not be violated,") and human rights ("the State respects and protects human rights.") This was argued by the government to be progress for Chinese democracy and a sign from Communist Party of China that they recognised the need for change, because the booming Chinese economy had created a wealthy new middle class who wanted protection of their own property.

Wen Jiabao was quoted by the Washington Post as saying, "These amendments of the Chinese constitution are of great importance to the development of China." "We will make serious efforts to carry them out in practice."[7]

Constitutional enforcement[edit]

There is no special organization tasked with the enforcement of the Chinese constitution. Although in the constitution it stipulates that the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee have the power to review whether laws or activities violate the constitution.

Furthermore, under the legal system of the People's Republic of China, courts do not have the general power of judicial review and cannot invalidate a statute on the grounds that it violates the constitution. Nonetheless, since 2002, there has been a special committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress which has reviewed laws and regulations for constitutionality. Although this committee has not yet explicitly ruled that a law or regulation is unconstitutional, in one case, after the subsequent media outcry over the death of Sun Zhigang, the State Council was forced to rescind regulations allowing police to detain persons without residency permits after the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC) made it clear that it would rule such regulations unconstitutional if they were not rescinded.

The Open Constitution Initiative was an organization consisting of lawyers and academics in the People's Republic of China that advocated the rule of law and greater constitutional protections. It was shut down by the government on July 14, 2009.

As the basis for reform[edit]

In early 2013, a movement developed among reformers in China based on enforcing the provisions of the constitution.[8]

See also[edit]



  1. ^ Elkins, Zachary; Ginsburg, Tom; Melton, James (2009). The Endurance of National Constitutions. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 
  2. ^ "China 1982 (rev. 2004)". Constitute. Retrieved 22 April 2015. 
  3. ^ a b "CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA". December 4, 1982.  External link in |publisher= (help)
  4. ^ "China". U.S. Country Studies.  External link in |work= (help); |chapter= ignored (help)
  6. ^ "城乡居民选举首次实现同票同权(Chinese)". Retrieved 17 July 2015. 
  8. ^ Edward Wong; Jonathan Ansfield (February 3, 2013). "Reformers Aim to Get China to Live Up to Own Constitution". The New York Times. Retrieved February 4, 2013. 


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