Personal Authority Archives - understand-culture

Whose Person Is He?

In November 2016, the Communist Party published its Several Norms on Political Life Within the Party under the New Situation. One rule reads: “No one may treat the Party’s cadres as private property. Personal dependency relations are not allowed in the Party.” Another forbids members, above all senior cadres, to form “small mountaintops, small circles and small gangs,” to build private relationships or to cultivate personal power.

An article published in May 2017 quoted Xi Jinping on what he called the “circle culture” of some cadres. They spend all day pulling connections, he said, “analyzing whose person someone is and who promoted him,” and looking for “whose thigh they can hug.”

Soldiers Belong to the General

In the 1850s, Zeng Guofan raised the Xiang Army in Hunan to fight the Taiping. The historian Mao Haijian notes that its soldiers were recruited by their own officers, who went back to their home villages to find them. Chinese Wikipedia describes the result: “Soldiers followed their general, soldiers belonged to their general, and the whole army obeyed Zeng Guofan alone.”

Wang Kaiyun, who wrote the army’s history, put the bond this way: “Generals and soldiers were close, and each protected its own leader. When the general died, his army dispersed. While the general lived, his army stayed whole.”

The Vocabulary of Followers

一朝天子一朝臣 One Son of Heaven, one set of ministers. The Handian dictionary defines it as: when one person takes office, the staff below are replaced. The Taiwan Ministry of Education dictionary adds that it carries a disapproving sense of appointing one’s own trusted people.

门生故吏 Students and former subordinates. The phrase appears in the Book of the Later Han: “The Yuan family spread favor for four generations, and its students and former subordinates filled the realm.”

站队 To stand in line. Handian gives a second meaning: to align oneself with someone. Its example reads: “He could not tell right from wrong, and he stood in the wrong line.”

The Seal Left Behind

In chapter 27 of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu leaves Cao Cao to return to his old lord, Liu Bei. He seals up the gold that Cao Cao has given him and hangs up his seal of office, feng jin gua yin (封金挂印). One of Cao Cao’s generals wants to pursue him. Cao Cao stops him: “He does not forget his old lord. He comes and goes openly. He is a true man.”

Cao Cao then tells Zhang Liao: “Wealth could not move his heart. Rank and salary could not change his will. I respect such a man deeply.” He says that he will see Guan Yu off with travel money and a robe.

The Leader’s Secretary

In 2014, a report compiled from Xinhua, Outlook Weekly and the Beijing News described the hidden power of the secretaries of leading officials. They are the people closest to the leader, and those who want favors approach them first. It quoted Li Zhen, once known as “Hebei’s first secretary”: “When I was a secretary, someone was in charge of me, but no one supervised me.”

A report of the discipline inspection and supervision authorities, carried by Huanqiu, noted that in bribery cases, “the secretaries, drivers, subordinates and friends of leading cadres are also often involved.”

In the Name of the People

In the Name of the People (人民的名义), a drama made by the film and television center of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, began on Hunan Satellite TV on March 28, 2017. It is set in the fictional province of Handong.

Two factions there have competed for years. The “Handong University gang” (汉大帮) forms around Gao Yuliang, deputy party secretary of the province and a former university teacher. The “secretaries’ gang” (秘书帮) forms around Li Dakang, party secretary of the city of Jingzhou.

Calling the Supervisor Boss

Many Chinese graduate students call their supervisor laoban, boss. In an essay, the philosopher Zhou Guoping called this “a fairly common phenomenon” in Chinese universities. A supervisor becomes a boss, he wrote, “first through the power to decide whether a student can graduate, and second through the funds in his hands.”

In June 2026, the Beijing News reported a survey in which more than half of the respondents wanted their supervisors to be more like supporters than traditional bosses.

Patron and Disciple

Under the Tang imperial examinations, a successful candidate regarded the chief examiner who passed him as his zuozhu, his patron, and himself as the examiner’s mensheng, his disciple. In the words of the literary historian Hu Kexian, “the patron regarded his disciples as his ‘estate fields,’ and the disciples regarded their patron as the ‘owner of the garden.'”

Candidates who had failed many times felt especially grateful once they passed. After the examiner Gao Ying died, Bai Juyi passed his old house and still wrote a poem of gratitude.

The Entrustment at Baidi

In 223, the dying Liu Bei, ruler of Shu Han, called his chancellor Zhuge Liang and entrusted his son to him. “Your talent is ten times that of Cao Pi,” he said. “If my heir can be helped, help him. If he has no talent, you may take the throne yourself.”

Zhuge Liang wept: “I will give all the strength of my limbs and the loyalty of my heart, until death.” Liu Bei told his sons to serve the chancellor “as a father.”

Leaders’ Written Instructions

In Chinese government, a leader’s short written comment on a report or document is called a pishi (批示), a written instruction. It turns the document into a task for the people below.

In 2016, Xi Jinping wrote such an instruction on the study of Mao Zedong’s essay on the working methods of Party committees. The Central Organization Department then issued a notice to carry it out. According to the Party’s news site, the instruction set clear requirements for every member of every Party leadership team, and especially for its principal leaders.