- Changes to China’s society and economy are occurring faster than are comparable adjustments in party organization and function. As noted in Chapter 6, for example, urban governance is shifting from delivery of services via the danwei to utilization of community-based organizations. The party is also shifting to construct basic-level party organs on a community basis, but this effort may be lagging behind the changes in the government.
- The private sector, which is the most rapidly growing and dynamic sector of the Chinese economy, has relatively little participation in the CCP. New efforts to recruit private entrepreneurs to the party will address this problem to a limited degree, but workers in private-sector firms are unlikely to feel that the CCP is becoming more responsive simply because the owners are joining it. The same concerns about responsiveness are even truer for unemployed workers, migrant peasants, and others who fall largely outside the ken of the current party structure.
- Many in China’s increasingly well-informed and sophisticate population question why a country of this wealth and complexity should be governed by a corrupt political party that depends largely on its ability to deliver rapid economic growth to stay in power. This is especially true among those who feel that economic growth since the late 1990s has not provided them with concrete benefits. The CCP had proven adept at steering China’s growth effort but has not developed the capacity to amalgamate. Articulate, and adjudicate the various interests in Chinese society in a way that inspires confidence among broad segments of the population.