List of political parties in China


, officially the People's Republic of China, is formally a multi-party state under the leadership of the Communist Party of China leading eight minor parties, in a United Front similar to the popular fronts of former Communist-era Eastern European countries such as the National Front of Democratic Germany.
Under the one country, two systems system, the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, which were previously colonies of European powers, operate under a different political system to the rest of China. Currently, both Hong Kong and Macau possess multi-party systems that were introduced just before the handover of the territories to China.

Relationships with the Communist Party

In practice, only one political party holds effective power at the national level, namely the CPC. Its dominance is such that China is effectively a one-party state. The eight minor parties are part of the United Front and also take part in the political system, but they have limited power at national level. The minor parties must accept the "leading role" of the CPC as a condition of their continued existence. The Chinese political system allows for the participation of some non-CPC members and members of minor parties in the National People's Congress, but they are vetted by the CPC. The Constitution of China states in the preamble: "The system of the multi-party cooperation and political consultation led by the Communist Party of China will exist and develop for a long time to come."

Parties

Institutional parties

Suppressed parties

The following parties formed in China that were/are illegal.
The Republic of China was founded by the Kuomintang leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1912. The Kuomintang's prior revolutionary political group, the Revive China Society, was founded on 24 November 1894. It later merged with various other revolutionary groups to form the Tongmenghui in 1905. In August 1911, the Tongmenghui further merged with various other political parties in Beijing to form the KMT. In July 1914, the KMT re-organized itself as the Chinese Revolutionary Party in Tokyo, Japan. In 1919, the party officially renamed itself as Kuomintang of China, which literally translates to Chinese Nationalist Party. It was China's first major political party. In 1921, the Communist Party of China was founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao in Shanghai as a study society and an informal network. Slowly, the CPC began to grow. These were the two major political parties in China during the time when the ROC ruled mainland China from 1911 to 1949.
During the Chinese Civil War, under the leadership of the CPC the People's Liberation Army defeated the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang in 1949. The Kuomintang had no choice but to leave mainland China and relocate to the island of Taiwan in 1945 from Japan, then fled there with the aim to retake mainland China and retained the name Republic of China even though the CPC claimed that it had ceased to exist after 1949.