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More female delegates to attend Chinese Congress

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Emma Davis
WVoN co-editor

The number of female delegates attending the Chinese Communist National Congress has risen this year along with the number of young people elected to attend, according to a report this week.

Women will represent 521 of the 2,270 delegates elected to attend the party’s 18th congress, 76 more women than 2007.

Despite the increase, women are poorly represented in the party’s main policy-making bodies.

At present, the country’s Politburo has only one female member out of 25 and there are only four women on the 35-member state council. The Politburo Standing Committee, which is the country’s supreme decision-making body, has no female members.

Delegates at the congress elect members of the Central Committee, which in turn selects the Poliburo and Politburo Standing Committee.

Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the changes in the make-up of congress delegates are part of a wider effort to ensure the longevity of the party, bolster public support and the legitimacy of the leadership transition after the recent scandal involving former Politburo member Bo Xilai.

A senior academic suggested that the turnover in the party’s top ruling bodies could be some of the most dramatic in the past 30 years.

Cheng Li, a scholar who focuses on elite Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington, predicted that at least 70 per cent of members in these powerful bodies would be replaced mainly because of their age.

According to China Daily, Wang also announced at the briefing that there would be greater intra-party democracy, with members of a high-level ruling body of the party, the Central Committee, being elected from a wide pool of candidates and a multi-candidate method used for determining preliminary lists of candidates.

He said: “A better enforcement of the right to know as well as the right of participation, decision and supervision are also essential in reinforcing the dominant power of the Party members.”

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