Time for the party to shed some of its excess weight

Perhaps not. Inactive members like Zhu – there are around 16 million, or 20 per cent of the CCP’s total number of 82.6 million – may soon find their membership at risk. A debate is brewing over whether the world’s largest political party should shed weight by dropping inactive and undesirable members so as to avoid the same fate that befell its counterpart when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. There are fears the CCP is losing touch with the common folk and its reputation is being tainted by corrupt and incorrigible cadres.

Last month, Shandong University scholar Zhang Xi’en noted that one reason why the Soviet Communist Party fell was that it kept taking in new members but failed to discharge those unable or unwilling to serve. The CCP is now in a similar situation and needs to beef up its internal processes to weed out those members who “damaged the party spirit” because they joined out of “their desire for wealth and fortune”, he wrote in the People’s Tribune, a magazine affiliated with the People’s Daily, the CCP’s mouthpiece.

“Only if the party keeps improving the quality and ability of its members can it ensure lasting rule,” Zhang added.

Writing in the same magazine, Associate Professor Wang Jinzhu of the Central Party School, the CCP’s top training institute, noted that members in the early days of the party were totally committed to its cause and willing to risk their lives for it. He is less sure about today’s members.

Calling for a pretty hefty downsize of at least 30 million members, Zhang proposes setting up an honourary membership system for inactive members; a five-year probation period for new applicants; and persuading “undesirable” members to quit or revoke their membership. It would nevertheless be a challenge to reverse the growth trend of the CCP, which was founded in 1921 with only 50 members and has ruled China since 1949. Over the past six decades, the population rose by 143 per cent to hit 1.34 billion, while CCP membership rocketed 1,500 per cent to cross the 80 million mark in 2010.

Membership growth gained strength in recent years. In 2011, there were 21.6 million applications, up from 13.9 million in 2000. Each year, the CCP sees a net increase of some 2 million new members. One factor is the success of the youth wing, the Communist Youth League, in recruiting young people. Another has to do with the CCP wanting to attract new types of members. In 2001, the party constitution was revised to allow private entrepreneurs to join.

The increased importance of a CCP membership in today’s China, especially for the young, is yet another factor driving growth. Said Peking University analyst Zhang Jian: “A CCP membership is now like a prized entry ticket and a passport to faster job promotions. Who would want to give it up so easily?”

Such a mindset explains why college students made up 40 per cent of new members in 2010. An Education Ministry survey in June last year found that about 80 per cent of college students wanted to join the CCP.

Still, there are some who think a leaner CCP may not be a bad thing.

“Taking steps to improve the quality of its members could help overcome the CCP’s image problem,” said Singapore’s East Asian Institute analyst Chen Gang. He believes the debate is a prelude to impending efforts to tighten recruitment and strike off inactive members. But Chen believes a downsized CCP may count for little in tackling long-term challenges. “Only real measures like a stronger rule of law will tackle problems like corruption.”