PARTY MEMBERSHIP
How to join the party – Getting into the vanguard of the Chinese elite
To well-educated Chinese, Communist Party membership is worth fighting for, even if it is not easy to attain
The fight against covid-19 has been a propaganda boon for the Communist Party. China swiftly crushed the disease and allowed its economy to return to near normal, even as much of the rest of the world struggled to cope. State media have crowed. “The advantages of the leadership system of the Chinese Communist Party and the shortcomings of the capitalist party system have been shown up in clear contrast,” said an article by the party’s discipline-enforcement agency. Many Chinese, though initially critical of officials’ cover-up of the outbreak, seem to agree that the party has triumphed.
In the West, many wonder if China was partly responsible for the pandemic, by failing to respond sooner to early signs of a new coronavirus and by keeping news of it secret—or even by allowing the virus to escape from a laboratory in Wuhan. China’s censors tolerate no such speculation. State media report only on the party’s resolute response, the results of which are clear. The country has had few cases for months and most of these were attributable to imported infections.
China’s efforts have involved not just mobilising the obvious people like medical staff, community health workers, scientists and police. It has also made extensive use of the party’s network of branches to provide manpower and management expertise for a party-led operation on a scale rarely seen in the post-Mao era. In the early months village perimeters were guarded by temperature-checking volunteers in red armbands. They took their orders from members of village party committees who bustled about sporting party lapel-pins. In cities the party’s myriad grids proved crucial in controlling people’s movements.
Front-line responders who were not already party members have rushed to join: some 440,000 by late June last year. Yet less than 6% of these applicants had actually been admitted. For the party is highly selective when it comes to recruitment.
Indeed, it is one of the world’s hardest ruling parties to join. And to keep out closet liberals and other undesirables, Xi Jinping is making it even more so. In other countries few mainstream parties would turn away anyone willing to pay their membership dues. In the Chinese Communist Party these can amount to as much as 2% of income for the wealthiest members. But party officials were wary of last year’s flood of applications. They detected opportunism—a chance to get an application fast-tracked by helping the party at a time of need. “Fishing in troubled waters”, they called it. They warned party branches not to lower their guard. To qualify, officials insisted, applicants had to prove themselves in the toughest of covid-fighting roles, not to mention stand up to political scrutiny.
Mr Xi began putting the brakes on recruitment soon after he took over in 2012. In the following year the numbers of new members fell to 2.4m, the lowest in a decade. In 2019, the most recent year for which data are available, it was closer to 2.3m. Chinese officials are fearful of the party gradually becoming a “party for everyone”, as Nikita Khrushchev declared the Soviet Communist Party to be in 1961. Such deviancy, they say, was one reason why Soviet communism collapsed: it had lost its “class character”. A scholar quoted by Beijing Youth News, the organ of the capital’s Communist Youth League, has said that China’s party would be better with about 40m fewer members than today’s 92m.
Not too many workers, please
Yet the professed importance of class background may be misleading. The party is still keenest of all to recruit the educated elite. In 2000 only about one-fifth of members had degrees—about the same proportion as those who had not advanced beyond primary school. Now about half are graduates, helped by a big increase in university enrolment. Students make up about 30% of new entrants to the party. But many join largely for self-interested reasons. Membership is needed for good jobs in the civil service and state-owned industries, which offer greater security than private employment. So the party is raising the bar even for students. In 2019, 1.96m were party members, around 300,000 fewer than a decade earlier. They made up perhaps 5% of the total student body, down from nearly 8% in 2009.
Induction begins with an application letter that needs the endorsement of two party members. Next comes an interview with an official from the party branch. Then the branch considers whether to proceed. If it does, the applicant becomes a “party-entry activist”. This phase can last a couple of years, during which the applicant must submit thought reports every three months, join political study sessions, do volunteer work and meet mentors from the branch who write evaluations. Then there are the background checks—a process that involves investigating the political reliability of family and friends and examining school records. An applicant in the West for a government job involving official secrets would require less rigorous vetting.
If all goes well, the applicant then has to swear an oath in front of the party flag, promising to guard party secrets, remain loyal and be “ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the party and the people”. This means being willing to do as Mr Xi orders, without question. The party is his machine.
The Communist Party abroad
As Chinese citizens head overseas, the party does likewise – With China’s global footprint expanding everywhere, so is the Communist Party’s—not always openly
“Party-building has no borders.” So intones the Communist Party to encourage Chinese firms to set up party branches abroad. “No matter where the project, that country will have a party organisation,” is another slogan. China’s rise has expanded the party’s influence abroad. As Chinese citizens head overseas for work and study, its branches are spreading too.
Browbeating the West to show more respect is the task of party organs in Beijing. The foreign ministry does the grunt work, but the party’s Foreign Affairs Commission, headed by Mr Xi, sets policy. The Publicity Department spreads propaganda through state media such as cgtn, a television network, and Xinhua, a news agency. The United Front Work Department (ufwd) controls organisations seeking to boost the party’s influence abroad, especially among ethnic Chinese. The aspi Australian think-tank says the ufwd oversees Confucius Institutes, the government-supported cultural centres on university campuses abroad.
Officials know the party is not an attractive brand in the West. So these organs keep the party’s name out when operating abroad. At home, Mr Xi says China’s state media “must be surnamed ‘Party’”, to serve the party’s interests. But cgtn broadcasts do not advertise the connection. The station sometimes employs anchors who are not Chinese, with backgrounds in Western media such as the bbc or cnn. (America has designated cgtn and Xinhua as “foreign agents”; Britain has banned cgtn’s broadcasts.)
Chinese ambassadors are also party secretaries, though they rarely advertise this. This gives them authority over party bosses in Chinese state-owned firms in their countries. They may meet locals as ambassadors, but put on the party hat for talks with Chinese expatriates. Chinese firms often hold party meetings in China’s diplomatic missions, says Chen Yonglin, a diplomat who defected in 2005. And the party wants to develop more structures overseas. The aim seems to be to keep members engaged and ensure they are not seduced by Western political thinking. The party guards against ideological deviance, so its re-embrace of members when they return home is conditional on proof of loyalty.
Before the pandemic, 1.6m Chinese were studying abroad and 1.5m people worked overseas for Chinese multinationals. The share of students in the party was low: many would have gone abroad from school, at an age when few are members. But many graduate and exchange students join before leaving China. And membership is high in state-owned firms: more than 40% of the staff of centrally owned ones belong to the party. So there could be tens of thousands of members abroad.
The party is still coy. In 2017 a newspaper revealed that Chinese firms overseas were guided by a principle called the “five not-opens”: they keep quiet about the existence of their company’s party organisation as well as its activities, do not reveal their employees’ roles in the party or even their links with it, and do not make public any party documents. But under Mr Xi, state-owned firms abroad have to set up party branches. They appear to be complying. “Along the belt and road, the party flag is flying,” state media proclaim, referring to China’s global infrastructure-building.
On foreign campuses, in deference to Western sensitivities, the party does not appear to be trying to create explicit branches among Chinese students and academics. But Chinese students are often eager to maintain party connections when abroad so as to restore ties when they return. One way to show political commitment is to organise meetings to study Mr Xi’s speeches. Some students abroad have formed cells for this purpose. University websites and social media in China have reported this at Nottingham University in Britain, South Korea’s Kyung Hee University and Missouri State University in America. In 2017 Chinese scholars formed a branch at the University of California, Davis, but soon dissolved it since American law requires those acting for a foreign political party to register with the government.
If party members form explicit organisations on campuses, they may find their freedoms constrained by the need to report on each other. But China can monitor the behaviour abroad of members and non-members alike even without a party presence. The Chinese Students and Scholars Associations that have been set up with government backing on most campuses with lots of Chinese students have no explicit links with the party, but their leaders report to Chinese diplomatic missions.
The party’s most intimidating global arm is the Chinese security apparatus. Unlike the army, police and civilian intelligence agencies do not belong to the formal party structure. But they are at its beck and call. China’s spies travel abroad to monitor troublesome dissidents. Wherever they are, they read citizens’ messages on social media. Chinese abroad who speak against the party take a risk: family members in China may suffer. There is little need for a party presence to instil fear. The tried and tested methods used by authoritarians the world over serve the party well