Wang Wanting submitted a membership application to the Communist Party of China (CPC) committee at Sina Weibo immediately after watching the opening ceremony of the 19th CPC National Congress on Oct. 18. [Special coverage]
"I was so inspired by the speech delivered at the opening [of the congress]," said Wang, 25, who was employed by Sina Weibo, China's leading microblogging platform, this year.
The speech Wang mentioned was delivered by the CPC Central Committe's General Secretary Xi Jinping, who painted an optimistic outlook for the future of the world's second-largest economy in an effort to substantiate the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation, promising a "great modern socialist country" by the middle of this century.
Wang said she thought about joining the 89-million-member Party when she was at university but went abroad for an exchange program and missed her chance.
Since the congress, a total of 11 Party membership applications have been received at the company, according to Wang Xiang, Party chief of the Sina Weibo CPC committee.
The Sina Weibo Party committee was founded in late 2015 and aims to "lead positive public opinion on the Internet." It now has 304 members in seven committees over several different business divisions, accounting for about 14 percent of Weibo employees.
"More staff are now keen to join us, including Cao Zenghui, vice-president of Sina Weibo, who is now a probationary CPC member. He has to go through rounds of tests and evaluations before obtaining the membership," Wang Xiang said.
"In the past, CPC members in non-state-owned companies were not willing to identify themselves as Party members," said Wang Xiang. "Back in 2010, we created an official Weibo account for the Sina Party Committee, but it aroused much skepticism."
"Now, Party members tend to identify themselves as a CPC members," he added. "The reason for the change is the central leadership's emphasis on Party governance in Internet companies and the Party members' exemplary and significant role in the work."
Wang Xiang said that Party committees hold various activities to "help CPC members strengthen team work and improve their sense of responsibility in order to stimulate their enthusiasm to work, including online and offline discussion."
According to the recent national congress, the CPC will work to improve the building of grassroots-level Party organizations in enterprises, villages, Party and government departments, schools, research institutes, sub-districts, communities and social organizations.
Besides their role in domestic companies, Party committees are also playing an active role in Sino-foreign ventures in China.
Yang Jie, Party chief of the Shanghai branch of KPMG Huazhen LLP and also a partner, said the committee had started to organize activities catering to young CPC members.
"Young members love sports, so we organized city orienteering," said Yang.
Other activities, such as visiting patriotic educational bases, have attracted more employees to apply to join the Party committee.
Yang said that Party building activities and company development would complement and accelerate each other, something she discovered while leading an overseas mergers and acquisitions audit team.
"Coincidently, the core members of my team are all CPC members. They work hard and win clients' trust," she added.
