GETTING INTO THE VANGUARD OF THE CHINESE ELITE / THE ECONOMIST

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.

Given the hoops that have to be jumped through, it is striking how many still bother to apply: about 844,000 students managed to join the party in 2019. 

As well as the practical benefits, there is also the cachet. 

“It’s like an Oxford dining club,” says Peter Mattis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (aspi). 

“You’re in on the secret, if you’re in. 

That is good for recruitment—and for creating fear.” 

It is also a badge of academic success: the party prefers students with the highest grades. 

In today’s party good degrees count for a lot. 

While working as a provincial governor, Mr Xi managed to squeeze in a phd in Marxism (though doubts abound about the quality of this credential). 

Kjeld Erik Brodsgaard, an expert on the party at Copenhagen Business School, says that the Central Committee is “better educated than the Danish parliament”.

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.