Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference CPPCC

a body of the United People’s Democratic Front of China.

A preparatory committee for the convening of the CPPCC was formed in Peking on June 15, 1949, on the initiative of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The first session of the CPPCC was held in Peking from Sept. 21 to Sept. 30, 1949. It was attended by 662 delegates representing the CPC, the People’s Liberation Army, various regions of the country, bourgeois democratic parties, mass organizations, national minorities, Chinese nationals living abroad, and Chinese public figures not affiliated with any party. The session adopted the CPPCC Common Program, an organizational statute for the conference, a declaration proclaiming the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a law establishing the Central People’s Government of the PRC, a decision declaring Peking to be the capital of the PRC, and a resolution designating the flag, emblem, and hymn of the PRC. The session elected the Central People’s Government Council and chose the All-China People’ Standing Committee of the CPPCC as its own supreme executive body. Until September 1954, when the All-China National People’s Congress met and adopted the constitution of the PRC, the CPPCC functioned as the supreme body of state authority, and the Common Program of the CPPCC served as the fundamental law of the PRC.

After September 1954, the CPPCC became a consultative body for the discussion of major governmental, political, and economic questions. In December 1954 the All-China People’s Standing Committee of the CPPCC adopted new rules that required all organizations and individuals belonging to the CPPCC “to strengthen the system of people’s democracy” in China and “to strengthen and develop the indestructible friendship of China with the USSR and all the countries of people’s democracy.” The rules also stated that the All-China People’s Standing Committee of the CPPCC would have a four-year term and that it would meet once a year. During the so-called cultural revolution, which took place in the second half of the 1960’s, all central and local bodies of the CPPCC in effect ceased functioning.