New requirements focused on recruit quality limit expansion to under 2%
Recruitment for the Communist Party of China (CPC) has entered a new stage, in which the fast growth in the number of Party members has been curbed while the quality of new members has witnessed a general improvement, the central government said at a recent working conference.
At the conference on the recruitment of Party members, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee renewed the call to control the overall size of the Party, optimize its structure, improve the quality of its members and enhance the role of Party members in society, the People's Daily reported on Tuesday.
A similar call was made in a guideline issued at a meeting of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau in January.
Cai Zhiqiang, a professor of Party building with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, told the Global Times that it's not the Party's intention to reduce the quantity of Party members; what they want is to improve their quality.
"The Party is trying to improve its members' quality, not dampen people's enthusiasm for joining the Party," Cai said, adding that controlling the overall size of the Party will not stop true members from applying for membership.
The year 2014 saw 2.06 million new members join the CPC, 14.6 percent lower than the number that joined in 2013, while the rate of membership growth has been below 2 percent for two consecutive years, a statement from the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee in June read.
It added that the total number of CPC members in 2014 was 87.79 million, 1.3 percent higher than 2013.
The Party has paid increasing attention to recruiting new members from the forefront of the working class and from new social classes.
Some 962,000 workers became new Party members in 2014, accounting for 46.8 percent of total new recruits. A total of 694 new members were recruited from those who had participated in natural disaster rescue work. Another 13,000 new members were from new social classes, the People's Daily reported.
Zhang Xixian, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the Party is trying to improve the quality of Party members by setting strict requirements and raising the standard for new Party members.
The CPC Central Committee in June 2014 said that new Party members should be enlisted in a "prudent" and "balanced" manner.
"It's a good chance to test the members' loyalty. If they give up on joining the Party because of higher recruitment standards, then they have failed to stand up to the Party's test," Zhang added.
