Who Joins the Party When the Party's Over?

摘要

Zeng Fanyue is a 24-year-old political science graduate student at Shanghai's Fudan University. Politically speaking, she's redder than red. "As a Communist Party member, I have additional social responsibilities. I should help people and do things for others," she says, telling how she choked up with emotion during a ceremony in which she renewed her oath of loyalty to the party. The government of President Xi Jinping, who's also chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC), says it wants more true believ-ers like Zeng. At the same time, it wants to weed out the party's corrupt members. Last year the number of Chinese joining the party dropped 25 percent as young people saw little to gain from joining an organization in convulsions over the prosecutions of party notables such as ex-Chongqing boss Bo Xilai and former Security Minister Zhou Yongkang. In just the first five months of this year, authorities investigated 26,523 officials, including seven at the ministerial level, for crimes related to their jobs, reported the official Xinhua News Agency on July 3. The CPC-now 87 million strong-is facing "severe dangers," particularly from corruption, Xi warned in a June 30 speech.