The Inner Court of Communist China

In this book, I discuss the mishu (.., staff member, secretary) system and the operation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between 1921 and 2022. In particular, I focus on the system's impact on high-level politics and decision making during four periods: the Revolutionary War (1921-1945), the founding of the People's Republic of China to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (1950-1966), the Cultural Revolution period (1966-1976), and the period of reform and opening up to the present (1976-2022). This is, I believe, the first systematic analysis of the mishusystem, and as such will fill a gap in the literature on the CCP.