Chapter 1: Introduction
3.2. Formation of Colleague Ties
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Seventh, two institutions related to Xinjiang are worth special attention. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) is a paramilitary unit with political and economic functions located in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It originates from the troops collectively civilianized in the 1950s as a force to safeguard and develop Xinjiang. It is a de facto province within a province. XPCC has full administrative authority over its medium-sized cities, settlements, and farms. It is independent of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region government although they do closely interact due to geographical and functional propinquity.31 The XPCC is therefore coded as an independent province.
The other Xinjiang-related exception is the Xinjiang Work Coordination Group (XWCG) of CCP. It provides the coordinating mechanisms for the party’s central leadership to directly pilot Xinjiang issues. Its responsibilities are not geographically limited to the province itself but cover all affairs in relation to Xinjiang elsewhere. It was established in 2002 and chaired first by Luo Gan and then by Zhou Yongkang, both as a Standing Member of Politburo and the Secretary of CPLC. In 2012, Yu Zhengsheng, a Standing Member of Politburo and the Chairman of National Committee of CPPCC, chaired the group. In this thesis, the chairmanship of XWCG is coded as a superordinate position to all other Xinjiang-related institutions.
3.2. Formation of Colleague Ties
After compiling the career tracks of senior corrupt cadres, we then identify all overlapping of their working experience. The overlapping forms direct colleague relations that constitute the ties in our tiger network. A colleague relation is coded
31 XPCC and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are administratively independent of each other yet overlapped in leadership. The Party Chief of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region concurrently holds two positions in XPCC as its first secretary and first commissar.
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only if two cadres have worked simultaneously in the same province/institution. For colleagues at the same rank level, they have to be working in the same unit at their lowest shared rank level. In cases of unequal colleagueship, the lowest-level unit of the superordinate has to directly govern the subordinate. The full administrative rank levels32 of the two colleagues shall be the same or next to each other. Figure 3-1 provides an illustration of the general principles of colleagueship identification, using a province as an example. In a province, a vice provincial governor and a municipal party chief in that province are tied, and a provincial party chief can be coded as a colleague of a vice-major in a subordinate municipality. But the provincial party chief cannot have colleague relations with cadres lower than vice-departmental level because they are too distant administratively.
Figure 3-1: Tie Formation Exemplified
Detailed coding principles are explained as follows. First, two colleagues shall work in the same vertical or horizontal parent unit. Vertically, if a cadre works in the central ministry that governs the functional provincial branch in which another cadre
32 A full rank level includes both the vice- and the full- rank at its level. For example, vice-provincial level and full-provincial level are both in the full rank of “provincial level”.
Provincial Party Chief Provincial Deputy
Party Chief
Mayor Vice-Mayor
Municipality A Municipality B Director of Department X
Deputy Director of Department X
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works, these two cadres can be coded as colleagues. Standing committees of party committees at all rank levels are considered as universal vertical parent units to all civilian functional branches below. For example, a standing member of provincial party committee is a superordinate colleague of a vice-chairman of provincial CPPCC.
Horizontally, if two cadres are serving in local governments in the same province, they have to be in the same geographical unit at the lowest rank level in order to be colleagues. For instance, if a cadre works in a municipal government and another cadre serves in a county outside that municipality, these two cadres cannot be coded as colleagues. In cases of two cadres working in the same functional branch yet in two different provinces, they are not colleagues according to our coding principles.
Second, as a general rule, we recognize provincial-level institutions for civilian cadres and military-regional-level units for military officers as their parent units. For civilian cadres, the 31 provincial local units plus XPCC are recognized as horizontal parent units. The ministries, administrations, departments and other units at ministerial level directly under the State Council and Central Committee, vice-ministerial-level SOEs directly supervised by SASAC, vice-ministerial-level state-owned financial institutions, and ministerial-level mass organizations are vertical parent units for civilians. In regard to PLA officers, parent units include the 4 general departments, the 7 military regions, the 4 service branches of Navy, Air Force, Second Artillery Force and Armed Police Force33, the 2 full-military-regional-level academies of National Defense University and Academy of Military Science, and other units directly under CMC. (See Appendix 2)
Third, two colleagues cannot be too distant from each other in administrative rank levels. It is to ensure that they have meaningful professional interaction. Two cadres at
33 These 4 service branches are recognized as full-military-regional-level units in PLA. Army is not coded here because it does not have its own headquarter before the 2015-16 PLA reform.
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the same rank level automatically fulfill this requirement. For two cadres who are not, if the superordinate holds a full- level position, there can be no more than two rank levels between him and the subordinate, e.g. full-provincial level vs.
vice-departmental level. If the superordinate is a vice- level cadre, there can be no more than one rank level between them, e.g. vice-provincial level vs.
vice-departmental level. The only exception to this rule is the position of personal secretary to a superordinate. A secretary, regardless of his rank level, is considered a colleague of his superordinate.
Fourth, national leaders can be colleagues with each other if they sit in the same governing body, e.g. the Politburo, Secretariat of Central Committee, CMC, Standing Committee of National People’s Congress, Standing Committee of the National Committee of CPPCC, etc. A national leader is considered as a superordinate only to those who work in the institutions under his direct command.
Lastly, we apply exceptional principles for general office positions. The Central General Office is in charge of various logistic services to the Politburo and engaged in a wide range of policy coordination between ministries and provinces. Therefore, the Director and Deputy Director of Central General Office are considered as colleagues of all ministers, directors, and secretaries of central institutions, party chiefs and governors of provinces, and presidents of provincial-level SOEs. This coding method also applies to positions in the General Office of the Central Committee of CCYL. It is to be noted, however, that these colleague ties are established only in a coordinating sense. They are neither unequal dyadic ties, as Nathan (1973) requires, nor bureaucratic colleagueship that Tsou (1976) underlines. These ties that derive from general office positions cannot form factional groups.