China’s Communist Party inches past 100 million-member milestone

Membership in China’s ruling Communist Party passed the 100 million mark, but the pace of growth slowed for the third straight year amid Beijing’s long-running push to rein in the party’s expansion.

The total number of party cadres reached 100.27 million at the end of 2024, an increase of 1.1 per cent from a year earlier, according to statistics released by the CCP’s Organization Department ahead of the ruling party’s 104th anniversary on July 1.

The increase compares to a growth rate of 1.2 per cent in 2023 and 1.4 per cent in 2022, down from a 3.7 per cent jump in 2021. President Xi Jinping, who also serves as the Communist Party’s general secretary, stressed quality above quantity as a goal for the party’s expansion after he took power in 2012, asking to “properly control” the membership’s growth rate.

In a drive to maintain the ruling party’s “purity,” China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong has made going after corruption a signature issue of his rule. In over a decade, Xi has purged hundreds of senior officials and millions of lower level bureaucrats.

The sweeping anti-corruption campaign has only accelerated during Xi’s third term. Since 2022, Xi has taken down at least three ministers, a dozen senior military figures, and several top bankers while tightening the Communist Party’s rein over the financial sector and other parts of the economy.

The acceptance rate of new cadres into China’s ruling party, around 10 per cent, has made it almost as tough to get into as some Ivy League universities. Still, party memberships are increasingly appealing as China’s youth confronts a more challenging environment with property, tech and financial industries slashing jobs.

In terms of gender, the ruling party’s membership was 30.9 per cent female at the end of 2024, up from 30.4 per cent the previous year and 29.4 per cent in 2021, when the party celebrated its centenary.