How the Communist Party controls China’s state-owned industrial titans
The state-owned enterprises in China contain 10 million Communist Party members and 800,000 party committees, according to the director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission
Out of the 40 million people who work for China’s state-owned industrial behemoths, more than 10 million are Chinese Communist Party members. What is more, according to the top regulator of China’s state-owned assets, these enterprises contain more than 800,000 party committees.
At the same time, Xiao Yaqing, director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), wrote in the Central Party School’s Study Times, when a state-owned enterprise has a board of directors, its party boss also tends to be the board chairman.
Communist Party members at state enterprises form the “the most solid and reliable class foundation” for the Communist Party to rule the country, Xiao wrote in an article published on Friday.
Since President Xi Jinping came into power, the Communist Party has been boosting its presence in China’s political, economic and social life. Xi has stressed that it is incumbent upon China’s biggest state-owned enterprises to answer every call from the party.
The SASAC, a state asset watchdog created in 2003 to directly supervise the country’s biggest industrial players, has the tricky job of marrying a modern accountable corporate governance system to a Leninist political system inside 102 companies to enhance profitability and loyalty.