| Summary/Abstract |
The motto ‘the Party rules everything’ is now a defining characteristic of governance in Xi Jinping’s ‘New Era’. This article analyzes the changing Party-state relationship by interrogating the competition between the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department and the State Council’s Ethnic Affairs Commission from the early 2000s, focusing particularly on the changes since Xi became leader in 2012. Through discourse analysis, the article documents the gradual yet significant shift in authority from the state to the Party in the institutional structures and ideological praxis of ethnic governance. It argues that the emerging power of the United Front Work Department over ethnic theory, policy and implementation signifies an important shift in ethnic governance through the intensification of integrationist solutions to China’s age-old ‘ethnic question’.
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