Back to the full dot-point answer
SingaporeChina StudiesQuick questions
Political Development Since 1978
Quick questions on The CCP and its capacity to adapt explained: H2 China Studies
5short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is ideological flexibility?Show answer
The second adaptation was ideological. The Party redefined what socialism meant so that it could embrace markets without admitting defeat. Deng's formula of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and his insistence that "it does not matter whether a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice" subordinated dogma to results. The doctrine of the "primary stage of socialism" justified a long period of market development.
What is the limits of adaptation?Show answer
Adaptation has always had a hard boundary: the Party has never reformed itself out of its monopoly on power. It abandoned planned prices, communes and revolutionary purity, but it suppressed the 1989 democracy movement by force, maintained one-party rule, and kept control of the army, the courts, the media and personnel appointments. This is why the most careful answers describe the adaptation as bounded or selective: the Party changes whatever it must in order to preserve the one thing it will not change.
What is q1?Show answer
Identify two ways the Chinese Communist Party institutionalised power after Mao's death. [4 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Explain how the "Three Represents" broadened the Party's social base. [12 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
"Adaptability, not repression, explains the survival of the Chinese Communist Party." How far do you agree? [20 marks]
Have a question we have not covered?
This dot-point answer is short enough that we have not extracted many short questions yet. Read the full dot-point answer or ask Mo, our study assistant, in the chat for follow ups.