As per tradition, the data was released the day before July 1 celebrations marking the party’s founding in 1921.
The Central Organization Department, the party’s top personnel department, reported a net increase of 1.14 million party members, an increase of 1.2%. At the end of 2022, party membership had risen by 1.32 million, an increase of 1.4%.
Xi stressed that to advance party building in the new era, it is necessary to uphold “comprehensive and strict governance over the party,” party organizations need to be effective, and he advocates a centralized and unified leadership system.
He said grassroots party organizations also need to be reformed to enhance the party’s local governance capabilities. The Internet and information technology should be applied to party building to fully cover party organizations both online and offline.
A closer look at the tally shows that the number of members under the age of 30 fell to 12.41 million, down 23,000, or 0.18%, from 2022. This rate of decline was significantly slower than the previous year, when the number of younger members fell 1.5%, or 189,000, from 2021.
Education levels within the Party have improved, with 55.78 million Party members (56.2 percent) having a university degree or higher, an increase of 2.13 million. Representation of women and ethnic minorities remains low, but there has been improvement.
According to the data, female party members increased by 88,300 to 30.18 million, accounting for 30.4 percent of the party’s membership, while ethnic minorities now account for 7.7 percent of the party and are set to increase by 14,700 to a total of 7.59 million by 2023.
Over the years, President Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of women’s issues on various occasions at home and abroad, and called for the protection of women’s rights and interests.
For example, at a 2020 UN conference marking the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, he said efforts must be made to ensure that women’s development goes hand in hand with economic and social development.
Despite the leadership’s embrace of economic and social empowerment, women’s participation in China’s elite politics has been slow: breaking with two decades of tradition, the Politburo currently has 24 men and zero women.
