How does the Chinese Communist Party manage a pluralised society?: issue politics and political strategy in China, 1921–2020

This study analyzes political issues based on structural topic modelling (STM) for the party documents and news articles from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s archive on 19 National Congresses of the CCP and 82 plenary sessions of the central committee. This article discusses how the CCP has emphasised development issues as common goals to mobilise different social groups since 1989, when critical social cleavages emerged in China. Evidence from text mining analysis shows that the CCP emphasised the issues of economic development and consistent development as social conflicts and inequality increased after economic reform took place. The focus on economic development and consistent development was a political strategy to elicit extensive support from powerful groups within society and the mass public. This finding helps to understand how political parties in non-democratic countries utilise political issues to strengthen their regimes.