<p>Party-Government Joint Normative Documents are regulatory texts jointly issued by organs of the Chinese Communist Party and state administrative authorities, designed to coordinate areas where Party leadership and governmental administration overlap. As a distinctive governance instrument within China’s party-state framework, they are important for understanding the interaction between Party authority, administrative regulation, and formal law, yet they have received little attention in English-language discussions. Historically, the evolution of these documents has tracked shifts in party-government/law relations, with their issuance increasing markedly after the 2018 institutional reforms. But their content is often abstract and programmatic, lacking the consistency and operability of statutes or administrative regulations. Empirical evidence from administrative enforcement and judicial decisions shows that they rarely function as formal legal bases, instead playing a largely supplementary and indirect role. These findings suggest that, rather than displacing formal law, joint documents operate within a legal environment shaped by strong formal legalism and professional pragmatism, through which Party governance is embedded in law via indirect and endogenous mechanisms.</p>