For the first time ever, the number of professionals registered with the century-old Communist Party of China has exceeded the number of factory and farm laborers in its ranks, showing the changing nature of the self-described vanguard of the working class.
The Communist Party had nearly 32.19 million members who can be classified as white-collar workers at the end of 2019, according to data from its organization department, topping the 32.01 million registered industrial and service workers.
The Communist Party, which on July 1 will mark the 100th anniversary of its founding, states in its constitution that it “is the vanguard of the Chinese working class.” Article 1 of the national constitution says the “People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.”
But Takashi Suzuki, associate professor of Chinese politics at Aichi Prefectural University in Japan, said that “with laborers and farmers no longer in the mainstream, the Communist Party is losing its identity as a political organization.”
CHINA'S COMMUNIST PARTY | CHANGING OF THE GUARD?
For the first time ever, the number of professionals registered with the century-old Communist Party of China has exceeded the number of factory and farm laborers in its ranks.https://t.co/X4I8MNW2dU #CPC #XiJinping
— Nikkei Asia (@NikkeiAsia) June 7, 2021