Abstract: The primary concern to run a state is to gather men of virtue and ability. The same is true to the CPC in having achieved a historic leap from China’s “standing up”, “getting well-off” to “getting strong”, a giant step that attributes to the Party’s strengthening the construction of the cadre team since its founding in 1921. To be more specific, the selection of leading cadres, the key minority of the cadre team, is the key link of the cadre system. This paper, based on the perspective of Historical Institutionalism, 1) constructs an analytical framework of the Centennial changes of the CPC selection system of leading cadres; 2) presents a panoramic view, i.e. the four historical stages that the system has been undergoing; 3) gains insights into, from the dual dimensions of structural logic and historical logic, three types of institutional changes of the selection system in the period of path dependence and key nodes, namely, functional changes, gradual fine adjustment, and significant changes and important characteristics, of the system. The paper, in inclusion, 1) sums up, from the three dimensions of democratization, scientification and legalization, the basic experience and trend of the Centennial changes of the system; 2) carries out extended discussions and puts forward policy suggestions on further deepening the reform of the selection system from the three aspects namely unblocking the channels for social talents to enter the Party and government cadre team, establishing and perfecting the mechanism and standard of being able to be promoted or demoted, and practically making greater efforts to select cadres from grass-roots level.

Key words: the Communist Party of China, changes in the selection system of leading cadres, historical institutionalism, structural logic, historical logic, cadre team building