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Explainer | China’s Communist Party in profile: its make-up by sex, ethnicity, age and profession
- Women remain underrepresented in the top ranks, with just one woman among the 25 members of the Politburo
- The professions, age and ethnicity of the membership are changing
Reading Time:4 minutes
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Phoebe Zhangin Shenzhen
This is the seventh in the South China Morning Post’s series of explainers about China’s Communist Party in the lead-up to the party’s centenary in July. Here, Phoebe Zhang breaks down the demographics of the 100-year-old party’s membership.
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Since the Communist Party of China was founded in 1921, it has grown from about 50 members to almost 92 million by the end of 2019, representing around 6.6 per cent of the total Chinese population.
As the sole governing political party in China, it reaches all aspects of Chinese society, from the government, to the military and schools.
It has almost 5 million party units or grass-roots organisations across the nation, covering 99 per cent of China’s urban subdistricts and rural villages, according to the party’s Organisation Department, which is in charge of personnel.
Here is a closer look at the demographic distribution based on the Organisation Department’s data for 2019, released last year.
Sex
Women remain underrepresented in the party, even though their presence in the ranks has been growing.
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