12 million join China's communist party

BEIJING, July 16 (UPI) -- China Monday said a sign of communism's appeal is shown by the Chinese Communist Party recruitment of 11.85 million members from 2002 through 2006.

The official Xinhua news agency reported the total number of people joining the Communist Party of China reflect average of 2.37 million per year.

"Departments all over the country made significant achievements in recruiting party members from workers, farmers, intellectuals, soldiers and cadres in the last five years," said one provincial official.

Students also were joining the party. Xinhua said at Shandong University, one of the largest and oldest in China, almost 92 percent of the undergraduates had applied for party membership.

The CPC's organization department said of the five-year total recruitment, 2.86 million were employees or employers of private enterprises and 810,000 self-employed.

The CPC's membership totals 70 million in a country of about 1.3 billion.