WUNRN
CHINA - WOMEN'S POLITICAL
PARTICIPATION
2011-12-08 - Editor: Sun Xi
The Rise of Affirmative Action
Equal opportunity between men and women has been a principal policy of the
party and government ever since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
However, most of the provisions under this policy have been too general and
have had no substantial impact on women's rights. China's hosting of the Fourth
World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 was a key turning point. This
event served as a catalyst in boosting women's political involvement, resulting
in various gender-oriented regulations. In the closing address of the 1995
world women conference, then-President Jiang Zeming once again emphasized that
"the equality between men and women is the fundamental policy of
China." Following the 1995 conference, the Chinese government has been
systematically supporting women's political rights.
As a primary provision in the 1954 Constitution, gender equality is protected
constitutionally in China. The Constitution states that "all citizens of
the People's Republic of China have the right to vote and stand for
election." Another article states that "women in the People's
Republic of China have equal rights with men in all spheres of life including
the political, economic, cultural, social and family spheres. Women's rights
are also stated in all subsequent constitutions.
Between the 1950s and 1970s, women's rights were realized and protected by
China's cadre management system under which all Party cadres and government
officials were appointed by the party-state. This system took gender factors
into consideration when appointments were decided, leading to a great increase
in the proportion of female cadres. The female proportion reached its peak in
the 1970s, representing a milestone in the history of women's political
inclusion in China.
The 1982 Constitution substantially advanced women's political rights. Article
48 of the 1982 Constitution states that "the state……trains and selects
women cadres." In September 1982, the 12th Party Congress, which was held
in Beijing, revised the Party Constitution. Article 34 of the Party
Constitution states that "the Party selects women cadres according to the
criteria of integrity and ability……The Party should pay great attention to
cultivating and selecting women cadres as well as minority cadres." Both
the State Constitution and Party Constitution facilitated the rise of
affirmative action, in terms of promoting women's political participation and
increasing the proportion of females in different power structures. In other
words, the new emphasis on women's rights made it mandatory to realize women's
inclusion.
Since 1982, a number of party documents and state policies have focused on
female cadres' training and selection. Various state personnel reforms have
also emphasized women's capacity building and their sharing of power in different
government departments and organizations, providing women with special
protection and benefits. The party has also made efforts to recruit women to
meet the target of training and selecting women cadres.
In 1992, the first law on women's rights, The PRC Law on the Protection of
Women's Rights, was enacted. It was amended in 2005. The law reiterated that
"the state should actively train and select female cadres. The state
organs, civil organizations, enterprises and institutions must insist on the principle
of gender equality in the appointment of cadres and they are to foster and
promote female cadres as leadership members. The state pays attention to
training and selecting minority women cadres as well. These provisions have
generated a positive impact on women's political participation.
According to these policy initiatives, the government should play a leading
role in policy implementation and bear full responsibility for it. In 1995,
China's first gender equality programme -Program of China Women's Development
(1995-2000)--was enacted. A second version (2001-2010) of the programme was
developed in 2000, indicating that women's political participation has become a
part of governmental actions. Various concrete objectives established in the
program have advanced the goals of women's political participation.
Benefits from the Affirmative Action
Progress in women's political participation achieved since 1949 can be divided
into three stages. The first stage began in 1949 with the establishment of the
People's Republic, lasting until the mid¬1960s during which affirmative action
and other mandatory measures enabled women to take up a relatively high
proportion in political power structures. The top-down appointment system,
especially its quota measures, guaranteed women's political inclusion.
Consequently, women's representation in party and government organs at all
levels expanded considerably.
Various indicators point to achievements in terms of women's political
participation, which ranging from women occupying leadership positions in top
offices to those in grassroots bodies. The proportion of women in the National
People's Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's Political Consultant Conference
(CPPCC) has increased over time. The first NPC (1954) had 147 female
representatives, accounting for 12% of the total number of representatives. The
second NPC (1959) had 150, accounting for 12.2%. The third NPC (1964) had 542,
accounting for 17.9%. The first CPPCC (1954) had 12 female representatives,
accounting for 6.6%. The second CPPCC (1959) had 83, accounting for 11.4%. The
third CPPCC (1964) had 87, accounting for 8.1%. That time, there were two women
in various committees of the Central Government, accounting for 3.1% of the
total number of members. Out of a total of six vice presidents, there was only
one female. There were 20 women in positions at or above the vice ministerial
level, accounting for 4% of the total. In the 1950s, local governments at all
levels had female cadres. Nationwide, about 70% of townships had female
directors or deputy directors.
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During the second stage in the 1970s, women's political participation reached
its peak. Due to the implementation of affirmative action and mandatory
measures, the 1970s became the most remarkable era for women's political
participation in contemporary China. In 1975, at the Fourth NPC, women
representatives accounted for 22.6% of the total. About one in four Standing
Committee members was female, indicating that female cadres made up a high
proportion of government officials at all levels, since members of the Standing
Committees of NPC were usually selected from among key position holders in
various functional departments of the government.
After a decline between the 1980s and the early 1990s, the third stage of
progress in women's political participation took place in the mid-1990s.
Affirmative action was re-established and effectively implemented as China
responded to the international community before and after the Fourth World
Conference on Women in Beijing, as well as four meetings held by the Central
Organization Department and the ACWF which discussed issues related to women's
political participation. Various programmes on training and selecting women
cadres followed. Since then, the compulsory quota system has played a crucial
role in increasing the proportion of females in party and government bodies.
Overall, women' political participation during this period was spurred by
international factors and intervention in the forms of women-oriented
strategies and policies by the party state.
In the 1990s, quota of women cadres saw a steady increase. Statistics show
there were 10 million female governmental officials across the country in 1991,
accounting for 31.2% of the total. The figure rose to 12.4 million in 1994, or
32.5%; 13.8 million in 1997, or 34.4%; 14.9 million in 2000 or 36.2%;and 15.026
million in 2005, accounting for 38.9%. Furthermore, women also appeared in
senior official positions. In 1994, there were one woman vice premier in the
State Council, 16 female ministers and deputy ministers, more than 300 female
mayors and deputy majors; and 21,012 women judges in the country.
Meanwhile, the proportion of female party members also saw a slow but steady
increase. The number of female party members reached 8.2 million by the end of
1993, accounting for 15.13% of the total party membership. That increased to
8.9 million in 1994, accounting for 15.6% of the total; 11.2 million in 2000,
or 17.4%; 11.6 million in 2002, or 17.5%; 13.6 million in the end of 2005, or
19.2% of the total.
The share of women among NPC representatives also expanded. There were 626
women representatives at the Eighth NPC in 1993, accounting for 21% of the
total, 19 female Standing Committee members, making up 12.3%, 2 percentage
points higher than the previous committee. There were 650 female
representatives at the Ninth NPC in 1998, accounting for 21.8% of the total
2,979. The State Council had one female vice premier and one female state
councilor.
There were 193 female committee members at the Eighth CPPCC in 1993, accounting
for 9.2% of the total; 341 female committee members at the Ninth CPPCC in 1998,
accounting for 15.5%, and 27 female Standing Committee members, accounting for
9%, representing 12 more, or 3.1 percentage points more than at the Eighth
CPPCC; 375 female members at the Tenth CPPCC in 2003, accounting for 16.8%.
The key to the progress was affirmative action and its implementation on the
part of the party and the state. The state, together with the Women's
Federation, explored diverse approaches including combining multi-candidate
elections with mandatory quotas to promote women's political participation. The
government established regulations to guarantee women's representatives in
government organizations. More importantly, the Central Organization Department
enacted a series of policies on women's political participation and initiated
regular programmes to train and select women. The establishment of an index of
women's participation among the officials' evaluation criteria provided a
strong incentive for policy implementation.
Implementation
Problems and Policy Retreats
The
development of the party-stat-led programme of women's participation has been
to a large degree determined by general policy orientation in different eras.
Despite enormous efforts to promote women's political participation put in by
the Party-state, the affirmative action policies encounter strong resistance
from time to time. For example, when government policies are focused on
achieving planned targets such as economic growth and material prosperity, the
goals of gender equity are subordinated and become poorly implemented. The
gendered effects of economic restructuring in turn are reflected in the
political sphere. As a result, the number of women representatives in
party¬-state hierarchies at all levels sees declines from time to time.
The first decline occurred after the mid-1970s. The proportion of female NPC
representatives decreased sharply in 1978. The lowest point was in 1983. In the
20 years from 1978 to 1998, the proportion of females in the NPC stood at about
21%, representing an increase of 0.78 percentage point in 1998 from 1993, but a
drop of 0.79 percentage point after five years (2003).
The low level of women's participation was also reflected in the leadership of
the ruling party. Female members (including reserve members) in the Central
Committee of the CCP accounted for only 7.6% in 2002, only higher than the 4.7
percent of the 1950s. There was actually an increase from 4.7% in the 1950s to
12.9% in the 1970s, but an apparent decline took place after 1977, reaching a
lowest point of 4.1% in 1982. Since 1982, the level has increased though it
still has not yet risen to the level of the 1960s
Women's political participation shrank not only in the CCP and NPC, but also in
all other areas. The comprehensive indexes of women's participation in the
party, government, legislature (NPC), and CPPCC and grassroots leaderships show
the same trend. Based on data from 1995 to 2004, women's inclusion in the
political and decision made processes.
There was an increase of 3.13% in the integrated index in the period between
1995 and 2004. However, that happened mainly during the first five years
(1995-2000), after which the index was seen to hover around 40%. This
demonstrates the trend of women's representation at different levels of the
party-state's leading decision making bodies. The low representation of women
was prevalent at all levels.
In general, women's political participation at grassroots levels was more
extensive than at higher levels, meaning that urban community committees saw a
higher proportion of women. However, even at this level, a similar trend of
decline occurred after 2000.
The low level of women's representation in leading positions is also seen at
the county level. A White Paper of the Chinese government (2005) proclaimed
that the state has clearly defined the objective for training and selecting
women cadres, and has strengthened the work of training and selecting women
cadres. Furthermore, a general target to have at least one female cadre in each
"leading group" at the county level had been set out in a 2001
document entitled "Opinions on taking further measures to do well in works
to train and select female cadres and to develop female Party members."
Apparently, the party-state had not been able to meet its targets of promoting
women to leading government and Party positions. Males accounted for an
overwhelming proportion of government leaders at the local level. Data
collected from 11 autonomous counties show that women leaders roughly accounted
for 5%, while men accounted for 95%.
Policy Deficiency and Future Improvement
One of the
deeper and major causes for the low level of women's participation in Party and
government bodies is that the existing gender policy or affirmative action
merely covers the "four leading bodies"( si tao ban zi ) which refers
to the Party, government, NPC and CPPCC. The affirmative policy provides only a
general guideline for women's representation while no other quantitative index
exists to measure female participation in various Party and government
committees, including standing committees. Affirmative action remains to a
large extent at a superficial level and has fallen short of bringing a
substantial improvement to women's inclusion in power structures.
The policy wording on women's inclusion in power structures is often vague. The
inexplicit phrase "should" has usually been used in defining women's
participation. For example, Article 3 of the third amended Law of Elections for
NPC and Provincial People's Congress in 1995 specifies that "the NPC and
provincial People's Congress at all levels should have an appropriate women
number, and gradually advance women's proportion." Article 9 of the
Organic Law of China Village Election in 1998 defines that "there should
be an appropriate number of women in each village committee." In practice,
"an appropriate number" has become the operating concept in china's
gender policy on women's political inclusion since the 1990s. Such policy
discourse has failed to substantially advance women's sharing in decision
making bodies in China.
This non-scientific description of women's sharing has made it difficult to
achieve substantial progress. The current widely¬ used definition is "at
least one woman or more," instead of the quantitative index in percentage
terms used internationally. Put into practice, "one woman or more"
has often been translated into a figure of around 10% of a given Party and
government body at the provincial level or higher, with the percentage hardly
reaching 30% of the total at the township and lower levels. This regulation has
thus actually restrained women's participation.
This in turn has resulted in ineffective implementation of the gender policy,
thus hampering substantial progress in women's participation. The concept of
"at least one woman" has gradually transformed into "only one
woman" during the process of policy implementation over time, often
leading to fierce competition among competent and talent women, rather than
fair competition between men and women.|
Furthermore, the lack of a system of policy supervision and assessment has
resulted in inadequate implementation of affirmative action. Many laws and
policies associated with women's participation are formalistic and largely
symbolic, barely exerting any concrete policy pressure on the male dominated
Party and government organizations. The rise and fall of women's participation
over the past decades demonstrates the frequently interrupted process of policy
implementation at different times when policy priorities are adjusted.
In responding to the decline in female representation, the ACWF has
continuously made efforts to promote and reemphasize affirmative action since
the 1990s. Several specific policy documents which the ACWF helped to formulate
successfully translated mandatory indexes of women's political inclusion into
practical actions, consequently ending the trend of decline after the 1994
Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. The affirmative action began to
take effect, leading to the enactment of the Programme on China Women's
Development (2001-2010) and two additional meetings on selection and
cultivation of women's cadres in 2001 and 2002, which re-focused political
attention on issues concerning women's inclusion.
The decline in women's participation has also attracted the Chinese
government's attention, leading to efforts to supervise and assess the process
of implementing the gender policy. The Women Work Committee under the State
Council organized 15 groups of national policy assessment and supervision led
by 29 leaders of the provinces and ministries. The aim was to make a
comprehensive evaluation of the implementation of the Programme on Women
Development. Such supervision and assessment will help to continuously realize
the indexes proposed in the Programme.
China's first Green Book on Women prepared by scholars and practitioners was
published in 2006. The research team was organized by the ACWF and sponsored by
the government. The Report entitled "Gender Equality and Women Development
in China" not only collected different policy ideas and proposals, it also
provided a comprehensive evaluation of the situation of Chinese women following
the programme's implementation. The report provided the public, the party and
the government with factual figures and the status of women's lives from every
aspect, including political participation.
More recently, the decision on women's representation made by the NPC in March
2007 explicitly defined that the percentage of females, rather than female
quotas, must reach no less than 22% of the total number of representatives of
the 11th plenum of the NPC in 2008. This is a significant turning point as it
is the first explicit regulation on women's participation since the reform and
open door policy was introduced in 1978. This regulation clarified the
previously ambiguous phrasing of women's participation by using numerical
terms. Again, this regulation can be regarded as part of the Party-state
efforts to boost women's participation.
Indicators show an upward trend in women's shares coinciding with these
efforts. Statistics show that the number of female cadres account for close to
40% of the total cadres in China. A 17% increase took place at all levels,
which included leadership positions taken up by women at the provincial,
prefecture, county and township levels.
The 17th Party Congress in 2007 had 445 women representatives, 63 more than the
previous session, representing a 20.1% increase. The Central Committee of the
CCP had 371 members, among which 37 were women, accounting for about 10% of the
total, 24 more than the 7.6 percent at the 16th Party Congress in 2002. With Wu
Yi's retirement from the Political Bureau, Liu Yandong, Head of the Party's
United Front Department, was appointed a new member. One can assume that not
only are the party and government aware of the importance of women's
participation, but they have also taken different approaches to improve women's
political participation. Nevertheless, it is not an easy task to achieve
equality for women in the male dominated Chinese society.|