Read an Excerpt
The Party Forever
Inside China's Modern Communist Elite
By Rowan Callick Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © 2013 Rowan Callick
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-137-36552-1
CHAPTER 1
JOINING THE PARTY
What is it like to be a member of the Chinese Communist Party? How do you join? What do you do at meetings?
Answers are not freely available. The party holds its secrets as close to its chest as Freemasons used to do — but with much more at stake. This is now the most powerful organization in the world, and one of the least understood.
In this chapter, we meet three ordinary party members and a party official, who talk with rare frankness about how the CCP operates at its most basic level: the local branch. Two of them, who are critical of the party of which they remain members, were nervous about letting their true names be used. But their accounts — which are strikingly apolitical, and whose critique includes the sheer boredom of being a twenty-first-century communist — are true ones.
From each of them, we learn fascinating details about the life of a grassroots party member in the world's last great communist power. Their views vary greatly because they are unique individuals in a culture that — beneath its communist governance — remains hectically individualist. They respond differently to the demands of membership, but taken together, their accounts also reveal many common experiences — the selection of the best and brightest, the top-down flow of information, and the constant self-criticism, designed to ensure a sense of vulnerability rather than of entitlement.
First, we meet Liu Meiling (not her real name), a smart, ambitious woman in her 30s who is working for a foreign–Chinese joint venture in Wuhan, an ancient but dynamic city of 10 million people in central China. She is smart, petite, and dressed in a black and white corporate suit. We meet in a hotel with a view down to the Yangtze River. She chooses a table in the coffee shop where we will not be overheard. I order jasmine tea; she opts for a cappuccino.
Every month, she tells me, she and about a third of the 40 colleagues in her section of the firm file into a special party meeting room, either during their lunch hour or just after work. When their general manager enters the room he is wearing, metaphorically, a different hat — as general secretary of the firm's party branch.
The primary business of these meetings is to relay instructions from officials higher up the chain of command. At many, perhaps most, companies, the general manager is also the secretary of the department's party branch. "You have to be careful because he is also your boss. He is judging you related to your work performance. Everyone becomes careful and wants to say something to make the boss feel you are special. You part-plan what you are going to say even in the most casual-seeming conversations. It's not like at uni, where you might become careless. You become careful. If you talk too much about your good deeds at meetings, people will think you are proud. Modesty is very acceptable in China."
Most of the foreigners working at Liu's company are not aware that their firm has a party branch. They would be even more surprised to discover that someone as modern-minded, fluent in English, and generally savvy as Liu is a member. Why is the party still so attractive to aspiring young Chinese that, now 80 million strong, it can turn away would-be members? How does it lure people like Liu, whose Western counterparts are unlikely to join any organization except a gym?
The main attraction is success, at both individual and national levels. Joining the party means joining a success story that opens the door to almost unlimited career opportunities. The party has placed itself in such a central role in so many dimensions of Chinese life that it now appears irreplaceable. And, being a jealous party that brooks no rivals, it has no competitors. If you have ambitions in twenty-first-century China, you need to think very hard before passing up a chance to join the party. Being part of the select group, the chosen people who wield such extraordinary authority, is naturally attractive to ambitious young people.
Party patronage provides a crucial stepping stone toward prosperity in China. Smart young people head for jobs in the government or in state-owned enterprises these days, not so much with international firms, unless they are thinking of shifting overseas. Foreign firms may pay more, but they cannot compete with the state in offering access to assets — to apartments, say, or to big new share issues.
The country's startling economic success has brought about a rejuvenation of the party, and an extension of its grip on China's burgeoning private sector. In 2011, on the party's ninetieth birthday, its membership reached 82.6 million, having grown from about 50 members at its birth to nearly 4.5 million when the People's Republic was founded in 1949. According to Wang Qinfeng, deputy head of the party's all-powerful Organization Department, about 21.6 million people applied to join in 2010, but only 3.2 million were accepted, a net increase of 2.3 million. During the same year, a total of 32,000 people were expelled or withdrew from the party. Most of these were "forced out to ensure the advanced nature and purity of the CCP," Wang said.
The two top sources of new members in 2010 were college students and "people at the frontline of production or work, such as industrial workers, farmers, herders, and migrant workers," according to Wang, each accounting for about 40 percent of the total new members. Only 23.3 percent of members were women in 2011, and 6.7 percent were from China's 55 official ethnic minorities. A quarter were aged under 35. Just 38.5 percent were farmers or urban workers, reflecting the party's shift toward a technocratic caste. Its average members are now professional people; 39 percent have degrees; they are the country's managers. It has become standard for the annual reports of Chinese companies to feature at or near the start the number of party members employed by the firm.
Party branches have now been established, Wang says, in "nearly all government agencies, state-owned and private enterprises, and social organizations. They have also been set up in 99.9 percent of villages and urban communities and in all associations of lawyers and certified accountants." Migrant workers who move from rural areas to the towns and cities — about 3 million party members — can participate in branches in their new places of residence, "so that they can stay connected with the party."
Wang confirms that the party is actively recruiting talented young people. "Party members are the vanguard soldiers of communist consciousness," he says. "They diligently serve and work hard in a selfless way. They are role models in every undertaking." Would-be members who are not targeted for recruitment by party officials must be sponsored by a party member — so connections (guanxi) are important.
In 2006 Ouyang Song, then the deputy head of the Organization Department and director of the party's education campaign, gave a rare press briefing. More than 85 percent of China's private enterprises with three or more individual party members — the minimum to establish a party branch at a workplace — had set up branches, he announced, and the party would work toward opening branches in every firm in China. This would promote healthy and sound development of the private sector and had the support of private business owners and entrepreneurs. It was now important, he continued, "to educate party members about recent outcomes of the development of Marxism with Chinese characteristics" — in particular its "focus on the increasing capacity to get rich and get out of poverty." "History will prove once again," he concluded, "the Chinese Communist Party is glorious and great."
Tall young computer scientist Ren Jie, wearing a wispy beard, is a true believer in such glory and greatness. When I meet him, he is patiently queuing in the massive new vestibule at Beijing Normal University, edging toward a desk where party members who are soon to graduate are registering their next workplaces or universities, so that their membership can be transferred to the appropriate branch. He is about the only person in the queue not talking on a mobile phone or sending a text message. He is heading next to Beijing University, one of the country's top academies, to study for an MA. Ren's girlfriend is also a party member. Many young communists naturally find partners through their party involvement.
Ren joined the party in 2003, when he was in high school, one of four best friends who joined at the same time. His father, a factory worker who assembles bicycles, is also a member. But, Ren insists, "It's not easier for me because he is a member. The party doesn't judge you according to your family background, but on your personal behaviour, on character."
In high school, he says, party members met once every week and occasionally on weekends. Sometimes the branch officials — who were also teachers — showed the students a DVD; sometimes the teachers handed out speeches by top party officials.
"Joining the party leads us to do a lot of things," he says. "I needed to be excited, in study and in social activity, and becoming a member was a great stimulant. As young communists, we have to be always learning new things about social life, about the country and the world."
Once he was at university, Ren found that almost every dormitory — most Chinese students live in such dormitories — included a party member. That student's task was "to set a good example to others, not just in learning but in daily living. We provide social guidance to other classmates. Maybe some students don't understand us, but we should make them believe our good behaviour demonstrates how it is a glorious thing to be a party member. The motto of our own university branch is 'Advance together with the team.'"
The university branch met every fortnight. The meetings, held on campus in the evenings, might last four or five hours. Students pay only "a few mao [cents] a month" for their subscription. Once they start to work, they will have to pay a portion of their income.
Ren is not sure what career he will pursue after finishing his masters. "Maybe I'll go to a private company that specialises in IT. Or I will end up as a teacher in a uni. But I am concerned that a foreign or private company wouldn't give me as much time off to attend party meetings."
Liu Meiling, the smart young businesswoman from Wuhan, also became a party member in high school. Her parents were both already members. They had to be: her father worked in public security, and her mother, as a telephonist in pre-mobile days, had the opportunity to listen to important conversations. Both jobs could be held only by trusted party members. Liu's father still does not talk much about his job, amplifying her curiosity about it. Once a classmate had an item stolen, and to Liu's surprise her father turned up to investigate. Her grandfather, a war hero who died fighting for the People's Liberation Army against the Kuomintang, was also a member. Liu recalls that her mother often complained about having to attend monthly party meetings, viewing them as a waste of time when "they just needed your presence." She would have preferred to spend the time with her family.
In fifth grade, Liu read a newspaper article about the party holding an important meeting about reforming the countryside, which interested her because some relatives lived in tough rural communities. Her teacher encouraged her interest, commending party membership as the way to get into the best careers. When Liu entered middle school, she was told she could join the Young Pioneers. She was among the 90 percent who did so. Their first step was to wear the red scarves celebrated in communist propaganda posters since the party's early days in power. Her parents encouraged her, saying it would improve her career prospects as well as demonstrating that she was a good person there and then. "Three things were required to prove you were a good student," she says. "To study well, have a healthy mind and body, and be politically sound. The few in the class who were left out without Young Pioneer scarves didn't really belong to the group. They were isolated."
When she was 13 or 14, Liu graduated to junior party membership, slightly younger than most. She was a precocious young communist. She applied by writing an essay explaining why she wanted to join. "You have to self-criticize," she recalls. "You have to state your shortcomings. One is enough. Usually people will say something modest, like 'I'm not seriously minded.' The answer the party leaders give is usually to spend more time with classmates or help people more." The party took a while to consider her application, but she was confident about the outcome and eventually received her membership card and certificate. Meetings were infrequent. "You were just expected to be good. Nothing much else. Most of my friends were also members."
Like the exemplar she was expected to be, she focused on her studies. Her academic performance was strong, and she won a place at one of China's top universities, studying science. She was there for four years, mingling with especially bright people. "Wherever we had come from, about 50 to 60 percent said they wanted to become party members, influenced either by their families, or by a wider vision of society. Some — fewer — were not interested at all. My family guided me and I applied to join formally, and it was approved."
Branch members get to vote on all new applications. The applicant writes an essay and the leader will read it aloud at a branch meeting. People who know the student will supply additional information and suggest areas for improvement. Then the members vote, almost always in favor — because if the candidate has come this far, she or he is overwhelmingly likely to be deemed acceptable by the authorities. After this, the members vote whether to require a formal trial period of one year.
If an application is rejected, the branch leaders will tell the applicant that she or he still has some problems and can improve in the following months. But they don't indicate what the problems are.
In the applicant's first year of membership, the party branch monitors his or her performance especially closely. New members must write regular self-criticisms to reveal what kind of a person they really are. Says Liu, "Young people are guided by this concept of self-criticism to be able to express nonsense from an early age. You learn how to make it up." Although most pass this first stage, ultimate approval nevertheless proves problematic for many applicants. Liu says that the party makes it look as if it is a competition, where the places are limited — although it also celebrates its growth in membership and places no obvious cap on numbers.
At both of Liu's universities, the branch secretaries were students, but a professor supervised meetings and would read news items or party documents and ask people to comment on them. "Nothing serious," she says. Meetings were held every month, in the office of a lecturer or professor or in a classroom. The party secretary of the department was always there. Usually the meetings were held in the evenings after class and lasted about an hour. Nobody asked questions. "We were all very passive," Liu says. Occasionally students would talk about politics. When officials read statements by party leaders, "We commented how wise they were. Always very wise. But they were very dull. No real business was conducted." Members were told which National People's Congress candidates they could vote for. "But it seemed meaningless to me," says Liu. "I never voted. They just gave us names, but I thought the process was ridiculous since we didn't know the candidates, and were given almost no information about them."
Wu Jingfei (not her real name), a 34-year-old Shanghai woman, first became actively involved in the party at university. I meet Wu for lunch — Ningbo cuisine — at a busy restaurant near her office. She is dressed in blue jeans and a gray jacket. Although it is her lunch hour, when time is usually pressing, she is relaxed — relishing, she says, the chance to talk to an outsider about a topic she usually keeps very much to herself. The hubbub around is too great for anyone else to be able to hear what she is saying, even by chance. She has come with her boyfriend, who has heard it all before, and who orders half a dozen dishes as Wu gets into her stride.
Wu comes from a family of party members, with the notable exception of her father, who regularly jokes, "I'm not sufficiently advanced as a human being." Her mother, grandfather, and an uncle, a senior policeman, are all members, and all are or were working for the government. At home, says Wu, they have never talked much about the party. "But Mum thinks that being a member means being the most advanced person — as a student or as a worker — in your performance and in your thinking. That you should be a leader in every area of life. The party leaders stress this too."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Party Forever by Rowan Callick. Copyright © 2013 Rowan Callick. Excerpted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
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