The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under President Xi Jinping has abandoned symbolic traditional gestures toward equality and is muscling women away from power.
Johanna Costigan, a junior fellow at the Center for China Analysis at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, writing in Nikkei Asia said that the last month’s 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party broke tradition by elevating 24 men and no women to the party’s Politburo, omitting its usual token female for the first time in 25 years. Women took just 11 of 205 seats on the new party Central Committee. China’s path toward becoming a modern socialist country, as officials describe their aim, has historically been framed as incorporating gender egalitarianism. However, loyalty and utility to the top leader, above qualifications or affirmative action-style standards, are now the major determinants of officials’ prospects for promotion.
Party leader Xi Jinping no longer feels any obligation to gesture toward gender equality, said Costigan. Other recent policy changes are indicative of the party’s position on women’s role in society, said Costigan.
