*OT*
How timely: in today's newspaper a story on China's communist
party:
"But experts say the party's biggest draw is not ideology,
but the connections it provides for young people hoping to
break into business."
You have to "join the mob" to "work for the mob". Hopefully,
the 95% of China's population that don't participate in
"the party" are able to participate in democracy before
they die.
Full story attached:
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 2, 2001
"China's Communist Party has 64.5 million members"
BEIJING The world's biggest communist party keeps getting bigger.
The Chinese Communist Party, which has ruled China since 1949, added 7.5
million members in the last five years, the government-run Xinhua News
Agency said Friday.
It now has 64.5 million members, about 5 percent of China's 1.3 billion
people, the report said. Of that, 11.2 million are women and 4 million belong
to ethnic minorities, Xinhua said.
The Communist Party was founded 80 years ago by 12 men who met in
Shanghai to start a group they hoped would one day save China from civil
war and predatory foreign powers.
Almost half of its current members about 30 million are under the age of
45, and one-third of China's university students have applied to join, Xinhua
said.
The figures show that Marxism and the ideas of revolutionary leaders Mao
Tse-tung and Deng Xiaoping "have strong appeal to China's younger
population," the report said.
But experts say the party's biggest draw is not ideology, but the connections it
provides for young people hoping to break into business.
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