The Chinese Communist Party added about a million new members in 2015, an increase that for most political organisations around the world would represent outstanding growth. But not this one.
New figures published today by the party’s organisation department showed membership grew to a record 88.758 million in 2015, or about 6.5 per cent of the China’s population.
That’s a record number of total cadres for the country’s ruling and only significant political party, but it also reflects growth of only 1.1 per cent over the previous year. As recently as 2012, annualised growth of the party’s base had been accelerating, peaking that year at 3.1 per cent.