China reports increased party membership, now at over 90 million

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Members of the Communist Party of China reaffirm their oaths at the site of the first CPC National Congress in Shanghai. (Photo courtesy: China Daily)

(TibetanReview.net, Jul01’19) – The membership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has risen to more than 90 million as it seeks greater amount of legitimacy under conditions of the country’s great economic prosperity. About 34 percent of party members were born in the 1980s and 1990s, and nearly half hold junior college degrees or above, reported China’s official China Daily newspaper Jul 1, citing the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

The party had previously seen its membership grow from more than 50 when it was founded on Jul 1, 1921 to 4.49 million when the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, the report said.

The report said the CPC had 90.59 million members at the end of last year, an increase of 1.03 million from the end of 2017. Besides, it was stated to have 4.61 million primary-level party organizations, up by 39,000, given the leadership’s constant emphasis in recent years on strengthening party organization and control in the country.

Women were stated to comprise 27.2 percent of party members and people from minority groups 7.3 percent, which is less than the percentage of the country’s minority population at 8.49 percent by the 2010 census.

Concerning employment profile, about 28 percent of the originally party of ‘workers and peasants’ was stated to be from the agriculture and fisheries sector, while 7.1 percent was stated to be workers, 8.3 percent personnel from party and government sectors, 2 percent students, and 20 percent retirees. It did not say what the biggest chunk of the remaining 34.6 percent was made up of.

The report cited further statistics as showing that about 99.8 percent of the current members had joined the party after the PRC was founded, with more than 80 percent having joined it after the third plenary session of the 11th CPC Central Committee in 1978.

An average of 3.9 million people were stated to have applied to join the party every year since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, with the annual number of members recruited remaining steady at about 2 million in recent years.

The new recruitments last year were stated to number nearly 2.06 million, 72,000 more than in 2017.

The report quoted Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, as saying, “The increase in membership means more people, especially younger generations, are interested in joining the CPC because they have seen the achievements that the Party has led people to gain.”

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