How the Chinese Communist Party Excludes Women: Political Power Is Only Wielded by Men

This Tuesday, the president Xi Jinping He led the Summit of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and international political parties to mark the 100th anniversary of the CCP. Among the participants, one could distinguish dictators, autocrats, former heads of state and presidents from various ideological angles.

Among them stood out Cyril Ramaphosa (President of South Africa), Nursultan Nazarbayev (former president of Kazakhstan), Dmitry Medvedev (Prime Minister of Russia), Alberto Fernandez (President of Argentina), Nguyen Phu Trong (President of Vietnam), Miguel Diaz Canel (dictator of Cuba), Saadeddine Othmani (head of government of Morocco), Emmerson Mnangagwa (President of Zimbabwe), Hun Sen (Prime Minister of Cambodia), Imran Khan (President of Pakistan), Mahmoud Abbas (President of Palestine), Aleksandar Vučić (President of Serbia), Philippe Nyussi (President of Mozambique), Hage Geingob (President of Namibia), Denis Sassou-Nguesso (President of the Republic of Congo), Mahinda rajapaksa (Prime Minister of Sri Lanka) and Evo Morales (former president of Bolivia).

No wonder they are all male, and that important leaders or official women did not attend the virtual summit. The history of the Chinese Communist Party was based on the concentration of power in men.

On July 23, 1921, the CPC had its first National Congress, in which only a dozen delegates attended. Among them was Mao Zedong, first party leader and considered the founding father of the People’s Republic of China. Since then, it is the only political space allowed in the country and it has governed without opposition since 1949.

At the last CPC National Congress – the event takes place every five years – it was in 2017. Women only represented 83 of the 938 elite delegates. that is to say less than ten% in all.

In this first century, training has almost 92 million members, which represents around the 6.6% of the Chinese population. Of this total, only a quarter are women. Their influence is practically nil, as there is none among the seven powerful members of the Standing Committee. The most senior official today is the Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chunlan, which is part of 25 members of the political bureau, the second most important organ.

The figures speak for themselves, despite the regime’s attempts to show a reality that is not such. Like last March, when Zhang Jun, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations, highlighted the role of women in the country. “Women play a key role in Chinese politics“, Declared the Chinese official on this occasion, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day.

In 100 years of the CCP, the only woman to hold a senior executive position was Soong Ching-lingwife Sun Yat-sen, first president of the ROC. Between 1968 and 1972, she was co-president of the country, with Dong Biwu.

Mao Zedong (1949-1959), Liu Shaoqi (1959-1968), Dong biwu (1968-1975), Li Xiannian (1983-1988), Yang shangkun (1988-1993), Jiang Floor (1993-2003), Hu Jintao (2003-2013), and Xi Jinping (2013-present), were the presidents of the People’s Republic of China. Prime ministers, men too: Zhou Enlai (1949-1976), Hua Guofeng (1976-1980), Zhao Ziyang (1980-1987), Li Peng (1987-1998), Zhu Rongji (1998-2003), Wen Jiabao (2003-2013) and Li Keqiang (2013-present).

The same thing happened – and it is – with the leadership of the Communist Party. Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, its rulers were: Chen Duxiu (1925-1928), Xiang Zhongfa (1928-1931), Li Lisan (1929-1930), Wang ming (1931-1932), Qin Bangxian (1932-1935) and Zhang Wentian (1935-1943).

Mao Zedong (1943-1976), Hua Guofeng (1976-1981), Hu Yaobang (1981-1987), Zhao Ziyang (1987-1989), Jiang Floor (1989-2002), Hu Jintao (2002-2012) and Xi Jinping (2012-present), were the general secretaries of the CCP after the founding of the People’s Republic.

Once inside the CCP, women are often assigned to less competitive positions than men.

“The Chinese government has a clear preference for men when it comes to hiring employees in the public sector. I mean what happens at a lower level of state. But when you study a little more what’s going on in the public sector, you also find preferences when it comes to promoting men over women. And the result is that an overwhelming majority of men are observed in the Party personnel “explained last month Yaqiu Wang, researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), in dialogue with Infobae.

Various specialists, including Wang, attribute this lack of importance of women in the political life of the country to a cultural problem.

“The Communist Party is, at least on the surface, a Communist Party. And the gender equality it is an important part of communist ideology. So if you go to the newspapers, to the official line of the Chinese Communist Party, the official statements are all about gender equality and the empowerment of women, and they have to support those ideas, at least on the surface, because that they are a communist party. But on the other hand, they have practical concerns, as if they needed more children. And at the same time, they have this traditional view of housewives as being responsible for raising children and being less able than men in the workforce. Thus, these traditional views added to the concrete need to have more children push the Communist Party to send women home. I think that these are contradictions which coexist in the party, they disseminate two contradictory ideas ”, Explain.

Victor shih, expert in politics, economy and finance of the Chinese elite, indicated at Al Jazeera that “the police, internet censorship, the military are very important and tend to be male-dominated specialties.” “Women are generally in education, United Front work (propaganda), social policies”.

To climb the ranks of the Chinese regime, CCP members must take certain steps in order to gain elite positions. Mostly, officials were first governors or party secretaries of a large province or city. In the public space, the presence of men is also overwhelming: there are only a handful of women in these positions, so few candidates are considered suitable for higher positions. Typically, the few people who prepare for these positions are already reaching retirement, which is set at 55 for women in China.

“It’s not like in the United States, where Barack Obama or JFK, 45, can run for office (…) You climb the ladder in a very structured way and you retire in a very structured way. It is very rare to become a member of the Politburo before the age of 55, which means that even with this appalling record of advancing women, it is very difficult to correct, ”he said. Richard mcgregor, author of “The Party: The Secret World of the Chinese Communist Leaders”.

Supposedly 10% of provincial, municipal and county leadership positions must be held by women. However, this mandate is rarely fulfilled due to an ingrained preference for men.

Valarie Tan, analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Germany, estimated that These “gender stereotypes” have increased even further since Xi Jinping came to power.: “The expectation is that women must finally get married, they must take care of children, grow old and take care of grandchildren.

Yaqiu Wang, author of a recent report on China’s two-child policy and gender discrimination at work, referred to “Extensive propaganda in China to encourage women – but not men – to stay home and raise children.”

“Women hold half the sky.” This is one of the main sentences uttered by Mao Zedong. But although the CCP has tried – and is trying – to promote the idea that women should have the same rights as men to be part of the communist project, gender inequalities are increasingly promoted by the regime.

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