Arran Hope
The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO) was a constituent element of the united front system prior to their official merger in 2017 under the aegis of the United Front Work Department (UFWD). Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government guidance documents, bureaucratic and budgetary linkages, and dual-hatted personnel all show clear relationships between OCAOs and their respective UFWDs. The official merger removed bureaucratic duplication.
United front work has a long history of being the responsibility of the entire party. Agencies at all levels, including OCAOs, are tasked with carrying out united front work. The centrality of united front work has been reiterated by every Party leader. In 1951, while he was primarily in charge of consolidating CCP control over southwestern China, Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) said, “united front work is the responsibility of all departments within the Party. If every cadre and every Party member does not understand this point, this work will not be done well” (China Association for Promoting Democracy, Accessed September 25). Jiang Zemin (江泽民) and Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) made similar comments (CPC News, Accessed September 25; China Reform Data, July 10, 2006). More recently, during the Central United Front Work Conference in July 2022, Xi Jinping also stated: “United front work is the responsibility of the entire Party. It must be taken seriously by the whole Party, and everyone should work together. We must establish a united front work framework in which the Party committee provides unified leadership, the united front departments take the lead in coordination, and relevant sectors assume their respective responsibilities” (PRC Central Government, July 30, 2022).
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