The Premier (Chinese: 总理 pinyin: zŏnglĭ), sometimes referred to as the "Prime Minister", is the Chairman of the State Council of the People's Republic of China and head of government. The Premier is formally approved by the National People's Congress upon the nomination of the President. In practice, both the President and the Premier are selected after high level negotiations within the Communist Party of China. The Premier is generally a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and usually second or third in the Communist Party hierarchy.
The Premier is responsible for organizing and administrating the Chinese civil bureaucracy. Significantly, the Premier does not have authority over the People's Liberation Army. In recent years, there has been a division of labor between the Premier and the President of the People's Republic of China in which the Premier is responsible for the technical details of implementing government policy while the President gathers the political support necessary for government policy.
List of Premiers
Zhou Enlai - (October 1, 1949-January 8, 1976). He became Premier of the PRC in 1949, with the establishment of the Communist regime. He remained in this position until his death.
Li Peng - (1987-March 17, 1998). He was made acting Premier of the PRC in November 1987 and full Premier in April 1988. He remained Premier until 1998 when he was made head of the National People's Congress.
Zhu Rongji - (March 17, 1998-March 16, 2003). He was nominated as Premier of the PRC by President Jiang Zemin and confirmed by the Ninth National People's Congress on March 17, 1998.
According to the Constitution of 1954, the StateCouncil is composed of the Premier; the Vice Premiers; the State Councilors; the Ministers in charge of ministries; the Ministers in charge of commissions; the Auditor General; and the Secretary General.
The Premier of the StateCouncil is nominated by the President of the PRC, decided by the NPC and appointed by the President of the PRC.
The Vice Premiers, State Councilors, Ministers in charge of ministries or commissions, the Auditor-General and the Secretary-general of the StateCouncil are nominated by the premier, decided by the NPC and appointed by the premier.
The premier is nominated and appointed by the president with NPC approval.
The StateCouncil acts according by virtue of the authority of the NPC, and there have been at least one case where the NPC has outright rejected an initiative of the StateCouncil and a few cases where the StateCouncil has withdrawn or greatly modified a proposal in response to NPC opposition.
Although there were attempts to separate the party and state in the late 1980s under Zhao Ziyang and have the Party in charge of formulating policy and the StateCouncil executing policy, these efforts were largely abandoned in the early 1990s.
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