China's communist party woos student idealists

By Bill Smith

BEIJING (DPA): Chen Li had doubts about joining the Chinese Communist Party. She admired its ideals but was disturbed by the level of corruption among its members.

"I know there is a lot of corruption in the party but I also know the majority of party members are very good. I also know there is corruption in other countries," Chen says.

Chen, 25, eventually joined the party and she has no regrets about her decision.

"I'm not so pessimistic, I think things will change," she says.

She had wanted to join since her first year in college, but in her second year she lost interest because of the level of corruption she saw. She quit studying Chinese communism for three years, then resumed the required course for prospective members after she started work as a teacher at a Beijing college, finally becoming a party member in 1999.

As it celebrates its 80th anniversary, the party is trying to attract more young, educated women like Chen.

The party says it has increased student membership in universities from 0.8 percent in 1990 to 3.8 percent at the end of last year, compared with the 5.2 percent, or 64.5 million, party membership in the general population.

Around 78 percent of members are over 35, and only 12.0 million, or 19 percent, are women, according to party statistics.

A survey in Zhejiang province, a relatively developed area near Shanghai, found that only 38 percent of officials were educated beyond primary school, said a party report published in May.

The party continues to promote communism in schools and through its Communist Youth League, as it has done ever since it took power in 1949.

Last year a speech by Jiang Zemin was included in a standard Chinese literature textbook for 15-16 year-olds. The book also carries a speech by Engels.

But persuading educated, fashion-conscious youngsters to study Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory in their spare time is as tough as dragging Western teenagers into church Sunday schools.

The Shanghai No. 1 Party School enrolled 1,000 teenagers in part-time courses from 1987-2000, but only 400 applied to join the party and only 78 became members, the official Xinhua news agency reported last week.

Wang Hongli, also 25, is another exception. She joined the party in 1998, while she was still a university student, about one year after telling her tutor of her interest.

If the teacher believes a student is interested for the right reasons, they invite the student to special monthly and block study sessions covering Marx, Mao, Deng and party history.

"Every month we gave the teacher a report expressing our opinions about current events," Wang says.

Teachers do not return the reports but they sometimes discuss them individually or with the group, she says.

They discuss individual students' progress with head of the departmental party committee, and decide when each person is ready for the next step, an interview with the head, she says.

"I felt very nervous beforehand, just like when taking an exam," Wang says of her meeting with her party branch secretary.

If the branch secretary is satisfied, the next stage is a one- hour inquisition by a full meeting of the party committee.

"That's the day you officially become a party member," she says.

Some people privately admit they are attracted by the benefits of party membership, including networking for new jobs or business opportunities, and greater promotion prospects for staff of state enterprises.

But both Wang and Chen claim the party now tries to eliminate those who want to join for career or other pragmatic reasons.

"You must believe in communism," Chen says.

"My only purpose of joining the party is that I think my father is a very good man and I want to be like him. I want to do something useful."