Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China

The 1982 constitution of the party state, defining socialist leadership as its core principle.

Overview

The current Chinese Constitution, adopted in December 1982, is the fourth of the Peoples Republic after 1954, 1975, and 1978. It embeds the leading role of the Communist Party, most explicitly since a 2018 amendment, and describes a socialist market economy and peoples democratic dictatorship. It lists rights to work, education, and speech within socialist limits, and formally makes the National Peoples Congress the highest organ of state power. In practice the party operates above constitutional constraint, a gap Chinese legal scholars call constitutionalism with Chinese characteristics. The 2018 amendment removed presidential term limits.