國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a
tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
TABLE 3
LIST OF CHAIRPERSONS OF THE NATIONAL PEOPLE’S CONGRESS 1978- 2013
Congress/Year Name Sex
5th (1978) Ye Jianying Male
6th (1983) Peng Zhen Male
7th (1988) Wan Li Male
8th (1993) Qiao Shi Male
9th (1998) Li Peng Male
10th (2003 Wu Bangguo Male
11th (2008) Wu Bangguo Male
12th (2013) Zhang Dejiang Male
Source: People’s Daily Online/China Internet Information Center; http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/organs/npc.shtml (Accessed: May 30, 2014).
Table 1 displays data of the representatives of the National People’s Congress of China for a period of 35 years (1978-2013). During this period, the Chinese legislature was filled by the 5th to the 12th Congress and there were 24, 360 parliamentarians, 5, 222 of whom were women.
This means that an average of 21.42% of the parliamentary seats was controlled by women during the period under-review.
There is a static performance with gender representation in the NPC. There has not been any form of dramatic surge taking place since 1978 and the ratio remains less than 22% for the most part. In fact it is interesting to see how 21% has become the norm in almost all congresses from the 5th to 9th and a decline in the 10th congress to 20.2%. In the following one (11th) the percentage went back to 21% and reached 23% in 2013. According to Guo and Zhao (2010), there was a parliamentary decision in 2007 for 22% of all seats to be granted to women in the subsequent congress. This target was not met for the said year but until 2013 thus granting China a position of 61st on the IPU ranking.
57
‧
In fact, China has surpassed the global average for many years18. However, it stagnated on the global IPU ranking not because of a reduction in female representatives but because of better performance of new countries that are breaking gender stereotypes in politics and the barrier of exclusion. Countries such as Rwanda, Andorra, South Africa, Senegal and Nicaragua have joint the Nordic countries-the long standing best performers- and outperformed many countries even in the democratic world19.
Moving to the standing committee, it is the permanent body of the NPC that executes its duties in its absence. This is because of the annual sitting schedule of the NPC. In essence, the standing committee is the executive arm of the parliament. Between 1978 and 2013, 1, 231members served as members of the standing committee; out of who 173 were women, representing 14% of the total. Compared to the entire parliament, the Standing Committee has never achieved women membership of 20% in any badge.
The 5th congress had the highest level of women’s representation with 35 women out of 183. This is similar to the high rate of female membership in the NPC in general for that congress. The following badge got the smallest ratio of women as their membership fell to less than half of the preceding one by registering only 13 women. The 3 subsequent badges ranged
18 Ibid.
19 At the dawn of the Rwandan genocide, the country established a mandatory quota system of a minimum of parliament’s 30% population to be women (through the 2000 constitution) thus leading it to be the world’s only female dominated legislature. In 2003, it nearly reached parity by representation, giving 48% of seats to women.
Since then, the country has never experienced a setback with regards to “descriptive representation” at least from a gender standpoint and it currently holds the world’s highest score on female representation in parliament. See Powley (2005) for a detailed analysis. On the UNDP’s gender inequality index (2012), this position is not held by Rwanda but Netherlands while the former ranked 76. Andorra has received no ranking while South Africa, Senegal and Nicaragua took 90, 89 and 115 positions respectively on the UNDP index. China beats all these countries in this index by ranking 35th. This data shows an important factor to note about a country’s improvement of gender equality will be only achieved through increased political participation and fulfilling of other social and economic indicators such as education, health and participation in the economy. For details, see:
http://data.un.org/DocumentData.aspx?id=332 58
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a
tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
between 16 and 17. In the 10th congress, the figure rose to 21 while the 11th reached a membership of 30 thus making it the second highest during this period. In the 12th standing committee, there are 25 women thus representing 15%.
Membership as deputies into parliaments and their caucuses do not entirely provide women’s influence in the legislature. The number of Speakers determines how power is shared within the parliament itself. Around the world, there is a low tendency of electing women as parliamentary Speakers or Chairpersons the IPU (2013) reports. It further states that, in many countries Presidents or Speakers of the assembly are high ranking members of their governments because of the relevance of the parliamentary body.
This relevance and the growing demand for women’s representation in national legislatures and their further demand for equal access of prestigious positions within the legislature has put the position of Speaker on the advocacy agenda of the women’s movement.
Some advocates believe that this is for good reason as it will likely alter the old gender division of labor when women parliamentarians were mostly made surrogates in committees or assignments. This is what Lovenduski and Karam (2005) report as women’s representation in parliaments must be beyond numbers but focus should also be on what extra duties and positions they are able to command for greater influence and benefit to their constituencies.
Table 3 displays the Chairpersons of the Chinese parliament between 1978 and 2013.
There has never been a female Speaker in the Chinese parliament. This shows a large power vacuum in the legislature as men do not only dominate women by access but also by definition of power. At a global stage also, there is a wide gap between women and men’s access to the position of legislative leadership. As of 2013, out of a combination of all legislative chambers,
59
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a
tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
233 were headed by men and women were in control of 39 (IPU 2013b). For the case of China, the interlock between the party and state apparatuses can make it even tougher for women to hold some of the nation’s most important posts, even though this is not always the case. Bo (2007) says that the Speaker of the NPC should be a Politburo member and without PB membership, certain important government posts cannot be held.
Deng Yingchao was Speaker of the CCPPC when she was in the PB (thus she could not obviously head the NPC) but Wu Yi was in the 10th PB but was given the position of a State Councilor and the same applied to Liu Yandong in the 11th badge. In the 12th congress, she has become a Vice-Premier. All these women’s presence did not qualify them against their male counterparts for the Chairperson position of the NPC, at least from a theoretical perspective.
From the data, while women’s representation is increasing in the parliament and its executive standing committee, the position of Speaker is the least reachable.