Comment by benjiro29
18 hours ago
> 7% of Chinas total population are members of the CCP. 7%. So at DeepSeek there's a good few handfuls of them.
If you want a government job, you need to be member of the party. That is no different then the old USSR system.
You end up with a overcount of "members" as people who ideology subscribe to the system, vs people who just become members for the better jobs. And yes, those people also get fired or leave government jobs (especially given the financial issues in the local governments the last few years because of the building crisis / lack of income).
So this type of throw towel over everybody to make a point is just a useless statistic.
> If you want a government job, you need to be member of the party
Do you know this? Or do you assume this?
I actually don't know. However, being from (west) Germany and old enough I know how a real socialist state, the east german GDR, handled it. And keep in mind that they were way more stalinistic than China is.
In the GDR you could have government jobs without being in the SED. In November 1989 they had 2.1 million members. Since the GDR had a population of 16.4 million, a whopping 12.8%. That a higher percentage than in China. And yet they had numerous even higher officials that weren't in the SED. Example "Hauptbuchhalter" in the combinats (some kind of main bookkeeper --- but keep in mind that their job was to follow the planned economy goals, not booking activa and passive). Or members of the central bank. Or lots of teachers (which in both Germanys are traditional official clerks ("Beamte").
They however couldn't be in (open) opposition to the system. There was "the sword of the party", the SED. And they had informants everywhere. So if you showed any sign of opposition, you were removed.
So you needed to be a "yes sayer", but being "SED party member" was not mandatory.
In China one can enter civil service without party membership. Because membership in the party is strictly quota-ed to prevent overgrowth. The quota for college students is very limited. But I assume any leadership position will require joining the party after becoming civil servant / government job.
The drivers for the stat don't matter. What matters is the reporting duties in the system and the stat.
Of course it matters. Suppose because tech pays better the figure in tech is more like 0.7%. The rest is shut concentrated in rural regions and other industries. Then your point would be moot wouldn't it.