China's Communist Party now has 100 million members. Many are in it for the paycheck.

Mint

17 hours ago

When President Trump started restricting study visas this spring in what he described as a move to safeguard national security, his administration zeroed in on students from China—pledging to keep out those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
But for many in China, being a party member isn't necessarily about ideology or loyalty to leader Xi Jinping and his efforts to challenge the U.S. Rather, joining the party is widely considered a step toward securing an 'iron rice bowl"—stable and guaranteed employment, typically in the government or a state enterprise.
As China grapples with a sluggish economy where the private sector isn't creating enough jobs, the government is getting a boost. Millions are trying to join a political party that is more populous than most countries and secure jobs in the vast bureaucracy that it runs, despite Xi's escalating mission to police the conduct of officials.
Party membership surpassed 100 million people for the first time in 2024, according to official data issued on Monday, marking a 1.1% increase from the preceding year. The party counted about 21.4 million membership applicants at the end of December, up 2.1% from a year earlier.
On Chinese social-media platforms, users trade tips on whether and how to join the party—particularly on ways to navigate a yearslong admission process that requires essays, interviews and participation in party activities through long probation periods.
'People around me have all joined the party," one user wrote on Xiaohongshu, an Instagram-like app also known as RedNote, adding several crying-face emojis. 'Feeling so anxious."
Xi has steadily tightened Communist Party rules on conduct, curbed perks and put officials through tedious political rituals.
Even so, the party retains significant appeal. Party membership, while not necessarily a prerequisite for a government job in China, offers applicants an advantage over those without party affiliation.
'Xi Jinping has made the lives of low-level officials miserable, and bureaucrats now have to work very hard," said Hanzhang Liu, an assistant professor of political studies at Pitzer College in California. 'But they have enviable job security."
The allure of a steady government paycheck has grown in recent years as China struggles to overcome a property crunch, tepid consumer spending and high youth unemployment. Job creation in the private sector isn't sufficient to take in the millions of vocational-school and college students who graduate each year.
As China's economy boomed in the 1990s and 2000s, many officials and government workers quit to seek their fortunes in a flourishing private economy, a practice known as xiahai or 'jumping into the sea."
Now, many job seekers are trying to shang'an—'return to shore"—by seeking stable work in the state sector.
Nearly 2.59 million people took China's national civil service exams in December, up about 15% from the year before, to compete for roughly 39,700 jobs to be filled this year, according to official data. Some 5.3 million people applied to take regional-level exams in 23 provinces this year, vying for about 166,000 vacancies, according to Huatu, a Chinese company that specializes in civil-service exam prep.
Survey data from Chinese job-seeking portal Zhaopin suggests that college graduates have increasingly prioritized job stability when making career choices. In 2024, some 51% of respondents indicated that 'stability is most important" when considering employment opportunities, up from about 30% who cited this factor in the 2021 survey.
'Civil service offers great job stability and generous benefits, especially compared with jobs in private sectors; it also confers high social status," according to Liu. 'The pull of a government job is so strong to so many in China that, on balance, its popularity is almost immune to short-term shocks," such as Xi's purges of corrupt officials and austerity efforts that result in cuts to government salaries, she said.
Communist Party members on average earn about 20% more in monthly income than nonmembers, likely thanks to better access to government jobs, higher-ranking positions and stronger social connections, according to a study published in 2020 by three U.S.-based researchers.
Chinese households with party members have enjoyed enduring advantages in wealth over families without party members, according to a study published last year. Those include preferential access to housing in the early phases of urban real-estate privatization and, in recent years, faster wealth accumulation through capital gains, according to the study by Europe-based researchers Matteo Targa and Li Yang.
While party membership offers privileges at home, it can become a liability abroad as some Western countries take steps to curb what they characterize as Communist Party influence operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May that the U.S. would 'aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields." U.S. officials didn't say how they would assess party ties or what degree of connection would result in the revocation of visas.
Since its founding more than a century ago, the Chinese Communist Party has evolved into a sprawling bureaucracy, comprising some 100.27 million people as of December. Its members staff government agencies from Beijing to the village level, manage state companies, and supervise everything from civic and religious groups to chambers of commerce and unions.
As China embraced market-style policies to deliver economic growth, the party eased its emphasis on Marxist ideology and, in the early 2000s, started allowing private entrepreneurs to join. Many Chinese came to see party membership less as a political commitment and more as a way to advance careers and profit from power.
Xi set out to reverse this trend when he took power in 2012, pledging to revive the party's revolutionary zeal and restore it as a positive force in people's lives. Doing so, he says, will help deliver the 'China Dream" of national rejuvenation.
Xi's emphasis on party control over economic affairs and state-led development has also dulled the luster of private businesses. The private sector's share of the combined market capitalization of China's 100 largest listed companies fell to 34% as of December from 55% in mid-2021, losing ground to state-owned and mixed-ownership firms, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
As party leader, Xi imposed hefty political obligations on officials. He directed purges to clear out corrupt, disloyal and inept party members. He tightened rules to require officials to disclose their assets, prohibit them from aiding relatives in business, and punish those who send their families and assets abroad.
Party members must attend regular study sessions on Xi's speeches and on party directives and regulations. They have to engage in a revived Mao-era practice of criticizing each other and themselves. The party has also enforced more strictly its requirement for members to pay dues rated at 0.5% to 2% of their monthly wages.
Under Xi, who demanded 'strict gate-keeping" in recruitment, the party's membership-growth rate slipped as low as 0.13% in 2017—the slowest pace in decades—compared with a 3.1% increase in 2012. The expansion rate has since hovered at about 1%-1.5% for most years since 2018.
Some officials, especially those who saw party membership as a path to career success, have grumbled about Xi's political campaigns. Such dissatisfaction has fueled bureaucratic passivity and foot-dragging, impeding Beijing's ability to enforce policies.
Party authorities have criticized what they call a skewed mentality of seeking membership for personal gain, and urged efforts to rectify motivations for joining. Many local party offices and universities have arranged seminars for prospective members, drilling home the notion that joining the party ought to be a lifelong commitment driven by ideals.
'If you have improper motives for joining the party, you're likely to lose your way politically, harm the public and enrich yourself financially, and become ideologically corrupt," a university official in central China told one such seminar this spring. 'This will not only cause damage to the party's cause, but you'd also destroy yourself."
Write to Chun Han Wong at [e-mail]