The CPC is the heart of the People’s Republic of China. It is the center from which emanate order and leadership, the most influential organization in the country. While the great majority of China’s organizational and institutional existence is carried out within the CPC, the party considers it its responsibility to also organize and regulate the activities of organizations, sectors and individuals that are autonomous to various extents from the Chinese state. The United Work Front Department has been charged with this task since the formation of the CPC. The lead organization carrying out and coordinating united front work is the CPPCC, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, convening every five years and possessing only a consultative role with regard to the executive leadership of the party.
During the war with the Japanese, the UWFD negotiated joint operations with the Kuomintang and later carried out influence and subversion operations within the Kuomintang to ensure Communist victory during the Civil War. After the war, the department used diverse strategies to train intellectuals and to engage with old society intellectuals in an attempt to “transform” them. Under Mao, the department dealt with economic matters, but it was reformed under Deng Xiaoping and gradually entrusted with additional responsibilities, beginning with monitoring, engagement and influence over Macau, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Following a major reorganization in 2018, the department consists of 12 separate directorates and oversees vastly different elements not wholly or directly under the control of the CPC. The UFWD supervises the work of the eight accepted political parties in China other than the CPC, the officially recognized religious organizations in China and the relationship of the CPC with overseas Chinese communities. The department also contributes to supervising ethnic minorities in China, overseeing activities in Xinjiang, Tibet and other regions.
In fact, United Front refers to more than a department of the Chinese government. United Front is often defined as a “strategy” with historical roots in the early days of the Soviet Union. The 4th Communist International, held in 1922, provided the following definition:
“The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie.”
In the Chinese case, as mentioned above, the United Front Work Department assumed responsibility for those elements and branches of Chinese life that were not directly regulated by the CPC for various reasons.
The influence of the department is such that most of China’s ambassadors to East Asian countries, all possessing large and potentially powerful Chinese communities, are officers of the UFWD rather than foreign ministry diplomats. The ninth and tenth bureaus of the UFWD, according to various publications, are charged with carrying out United Front work among “overseas Chinese”.
The UFWD and the scope of United Front work has grown significantly under President Xi Jinping. The department is now home to more than 40,000 personnel. Why has this growth taken place and why does it continue? Under President Xi the active involvement of the CPC in the everyday of life of all Chinese has also grown significantly when compared to his Post- Mao Zedong predecessors. The organization of the Chinese state has grown more complex, particularly when it comes to “gray” areas – areas enjoying various degrees of autonomy or less directly regulated by the CPC and the state. Additionally, as China actively strives to achieve global presence, the networks established over decades by the UFWD are particularly useful.
Not much is known officially, in documented fashion, about the UFWD and about United Front work. But it is understood that the United Front is an integral part of Communist history in China. The existence of the department and the sensitive responsibilities entrusted to its personnel demonstrated that the CPC maintains continuous awareness of its “political environment” (in American terms) and works to shape and influence it in accordance with party and national interests.
Cover photo by Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via AP