A man cleans the emblem of Communist Party of China in a museum in Haikou, Hainan Province in November 2012. Photo: IC

The expulsion of a Communist Party of China (CPC) member for running a fortune-telling business in Pujiang county, Zhejiang Province, has shocked many including some Communist Party experts.

Until September, when the unnamed member was kicked out, it was viewed as an unusual move to expel a member who had not committed any serious crime.

Although the Party's constitution does not say that members must not follow a religion, it stipulates that a member must firmly believe in dialectical materialism. Such a belief would appear to obviously contradict any religious belief and that is why Party members are implicitly atheists, said Zhu Weiqun, vice director at the United Front Work Department of the Party's Central Committee.

Many of the country's 85 million Party members might have believed their political identities, once obtained, were for life.

Some experts regarded reporting of the move against the Taoist fortune teller as a sign of a new purification movement in the organization, expelling unqualified members.

Similar reported cases across the nation suggest a campaign has already started. Apart from Zhejiang, Party organizations in provinces including Henan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guizhou have expelled at least 164 unqualified members, according to a report by the Southern Weekly on September 26. More are expected.

"The Party pays much attention to building a healthy party," Su Wei, a professor of the Party School of the CPC's Chongqing Committee, told the Global Times. "It plans to design an exit mechanism for Party members in an effort to purify."

Purifying movement

The Party has a long history of purging its organization to maintain loyalty to its principles that can be traced back to the 1930s red base in Jinggangshan, Jiangxi Province, the Guangzhou-based newspaper reported.

According to its constitution, the Party should hold regular organizational meetings where members criticize each other and conduct self-criticisms while unqualified members should be brought to the table and discussed by attendees.

This tradition has reportedly ensured vitality and proved successful during war. The Party treasured these lessons after becoming the ruling force of the country in 1949.

Strict political organization has eroded over the years, according to the paper, resulting in a membership boom and "composition flaws".

China had 85 million Party members in 2012, according to a July 1 report by the Xinhua News Agency, a 3.1 percent rise from 2011.

"The sharp increase in quantity might result in a decline in quality, which is key for a party," Su said, adding that the percentage of members among farmers and workers was low, retirees and civil servants too high.

The Party plans to increase membership 1.5 percent annually in the coming decade and urges local Party organizations to agree on a number and improve its mechanism for expelling unqualified members.

A hard political mission?

 To judge whether a member is qualified, local Party organizations hold meetings attended by people in and outside the Party to discuss whether a member is behaving in accordance with the Party constitution.

If he or she fails to obtain enough support, the membership should be reconsidered, Su said. But calling a Party member "unqualified" and expelling him or her can be a touchy issue.

As the ruling party, the CPC usually holds the power to promote officials. Being removed from the Party is fatal to a civil servant's career, meaning he or she might never again be promoted.

"Even though some unqualified Party members seemingly never care about their political status, if we really decide to kick them out of the Party, they won't accept it," Jiang Nanqiang, a Party secretary for Tongxiang, Zhejiang Province said, cited by the Southern Weekly.

For Party officials who have to comply with this campaign, they have begun to explore their way. Jiang's organization has experimented with defining the correct criteria for expulsion.

At first, Jiang found it hard to settle on exact standards for kicking out an unqualified member. The Party constitution refers to a "lack of determination," a phrase seemingly too vague to support such a controversial act.

"If the standard is made too loose, no member will be expelled and I will be blamed by higher officials for not completing the mission," Jiang said. "But if it goes too far the opposite direction, causing too many members to be kicked out, that might make our regular job problematic."

Jiang and his colleagues settled on 10 standards to gauge Party membership behavior that included the spreading of discontent against the Party, not submitting membership dues for six months, violating family planning policy and refusing to support parents.

Other pilot zones have come up with their own standards. The Hunan Province county of Xupu put "violating integrity" on their list. Petitioning has been forbidden for Party members by the cities of Dongguan and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province.

"Chinese society pays much attention to people's relationships. That has added to the risks of regulating the Party because many local party chiefs fear offending people by depriving them of their Party membership," Cai Zhiqiang, a professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, told the Global Times.

He added that the campaign must come up with proper legal standards to avoid the dangers of injustice.

'Unqualified?'

If literally abiding by the Party constitution, there might be fewer members.

According to the constitution, members must believe in Communism and sacrifice to achieve it. It also orders members not to seek personal privileges.

"In warime, the quality of Party members is guaranteed because those applicants really believed in the principles of the Party," said Wang Changjiang, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

"But now many people join the Party to share the fruits of its political power instead of believing in Communism," Wang said.

Impure motives have already spread among Party members, even applicants, he suspected.

"I submitted my application because the identity of a Party member might afford me more promotion opportunities if I become a civil servant in the future," a college student at the Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing told the Global Times. adding that many of her friends held similar opinions when applying.