The President of the People's Republic of China (国家主席 guo2 jia1 zhu3 xi2) is the highest state office in the People's Republic of China and the office was created by the 1982 Constitution. The President is elected by the National People's Congress in accordance with Article 62 of the Constitution.
Curiously, the term President is the official translation for the term zhuxi (主席 zhu3 xi2) instead of the term zongtong (总统 zong3 tong3) which is the usual translation for the term President. More confusingly zhuxi is usually translated Chairman in other contexts. The reason for the confusing translation was that the authors of the 1982 constitution considered the term zongtong to be too non-Marxist while the English term Chairman had too many associations with Mao Zedong.
Originally, the President was conceived of as a figurehead head of state with actual state power resting in the hands of the Premier of the People's Republic of China and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China both of which were conceived of as being separate people. In the original plan, the Party would develop policy, the state would execute it, and the power would be divided to prevent a cult of personality from forming as it did with the case of Mao Zedong.
Subsequent events caused the office to have much larger powers than was originally intended. In 1989, the President Yang Shangkun was able in cooperation with the then head of the Central Military Commission Deng Xiaoping to use the office of the President to declare martial law in Beijing and order the military crackdown of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. This was in direct opposition to the wishes of the Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and proabably a majority of the Politburo Standing Committee.
In the 1990s, the experiment of separating party and state posts was cancelled, and in 1992, the post of President was taken by Jiang Zemin who as General Secretary and chief of the Central Military Commission has continued to make the office of the President a powerful position.
Chairmen of the People's Republic of China
- Mao Zedong (1954 - 1959)
- Liu Shaoqi (1959 - 1969)
Presidents of the People's Republic of China
- Li Xiannian (1983 - 1988)
- Yang Shangkun (1988 - 1993)
- Jiang Zemin (1993 - 2003)
- Hu Jintao (since 2003)
See also: