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Why is the Chinese Communist Youth League (Zhongguo gongchanzhuyi qingnian tuan 中国共产主义青年团, CYL hereafter), an organization portrayed as weak, also presented as the cradle for one of the main factions within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? The CYL acts as the Party's “assistant” (zhushou 助手) in managing youth affairs.1 It is similar in size to the CCP,2 with 87.5 million members at the end of 2015.3 There are CYL committees at every level of the party-state hierarchy as well as in organizations with numerous young people, such as schools and universities.
Yet despite its size, the CYL is an organization “without power and funds” (wuquan wuqian 无权无钱).4 It is the Party that controls the recruitment of CYL leaders. Although the League's Central Committee formally elects the central-level CYL secretaries, it is the CCP Politburo Standing Committee that actually selects them. This arrangement is reproduced at lower levels.5 Beyond lacking autonomy, the CYL also lacks funding: the 2015 budget for the central CYL (5,838 million yuan) was just over a quarter of the 2015 budget for another mass CCP organization, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (2 billion yuan).6 In addition to its organizational weakness, studies have stressed that the CYL holds limited appeal for young people and its political indoctrination role has been in decline since the 1980s.7
As the Party's “reserve force” (houbeijun 后备军), the CYL performs an essential role in the recruitment and political training of future CCP members and officials. The CYL recruits young people aged between 14 and 28 years of age. After being screened and trained, some of its members eventually become CCP members. Yet the broad base of membership, which covers 25 per cent of the 14–28 age group, means that CYL membership alone does not provide its members with any clear advantage for a political career.8 Second, the CYL recruits young cadres to lead the organization. They are managed like civil servants and are generally both CYL and CCP members. Many of them later pursue careers within the party-state. Between 1922 and 2012, 34.59 per cent of CCP Central Committee members had previously worked as CYL officials.9
The CYL's role as a stepping stone for...