Around 90,000 Beijing college and university students joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the last 13 years, Beijing Daily reported Thursday.
The newspaper quoted the municipal CPC committee as saying that 6.1 percent of undergraduates in 53 local institutions of higher learning are CPC members currently, while 31 percent of postgraduates have joined the Party.
The number of new student recruits increases annually, with official figures showing 9,369 joined the Party last year, compared with 861 in 1990 and 5,571 in 1994. The number for the first half of this year was 8,564.
"To join the Party is to believe in communism," Gong Lin, a student and new Party member at Beijing University, was quoted as saying. "I would like to devote myself to the cause of the Party."
Gong donated 12,575 yuan (US$1,520), earned through a part-time job, to the Party as her first membership dues.
(Xinhua News Agency November 14, 2002)
