The True Nature of the Chinese Communist Party: A Global Threat | The American Spectator

July 1, 2025, marked the 104th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), now claiming over 100 million members — one in 10 Chinese adults and roughly one in 63 people aged 18 and above worldwide. Western media often frame this milestone with a casual lens, as seen in a June 30, 2025, Wall Street Journal article titled “China’s Communist Party Now Has 100 Million Members. Many Are in It for the Paycheck.” Such coverage paints a misleading picture, suggesting the CCP is a mere bureaucratic club where Chinese citizens join for personal gain, and communism is fading. This dangerously underestimates the CCP’s true nature: it is not a political party as understood in democracies but a secretive, mafia-like organization with global ambitions that threaten the free world.

Unlike democratic political parties, where affiliation is informal and fluid, the CCP operates as a tightly controlled secret society with a formal card-carrying membership, literally. Joining is no casual decision. Applicants undergo years of scrutiny, ideological vetting, and loyalty tests before being inducted as probationary members. They swear an oath to sacrifice their lives for the party, a pledge enforced with ruthless consequences. Leaving is not an option — defection often leads to public humiliation, expulsion, or imprisonment. The CCP routinely punishes a large number of members, from senior ministers to low-level members, for disloyalty, including asset seizures, social ostracism, and lengthy sentences. While some join for career perks — access to better jobs, networks, or resources — once enlisted, they are bound to the party’s will. Refusal to obey orders, whether spying abroad or suppressing dissent at home, invites dire repercussions.

China’s Global Threat

The CCP’s structure and ideology make it a unique global threat. Unbound by laws, it operates like a criminal syndicate, prioritizing power over ethics. Karl Marx’s doctrine, which the CCP still venerates, insists communism cannot triumph in one nation but must dominate globally. This drives the CCP’s aggressive actions: bribing foreign elites, weaponizing trade, and infiltrating institutions. Numerous reports detailed how the CCP’s United Front Work Department co-opts overseas academics, politicians, and business leaders, creating networks of influence in democratic nations. The party’s role in obscuring COVID’s origins — silencing whistleblowers and delaying global response — cost countless lives. Meanwhile, the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative traps developing nations in debt, securing strategic assets like ports and mines, as seen in Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port handover in 2017.

Intellectual property theft is another weapon. A 2019 U.S. Trade Representative report estimated that Chinese theft costs American companies $225–$600 billion annually. The CCP’s state subsidies and predatory pricing have decimated industries like solar panels, EV batteries, and high-speed rail, with Western firms unable to compete against Beijing’s large-scale state support and artificial market distortions. Propaganda, amplified through platforms like TikTok and state-controlled media, shapes narratives abroad, while the party’s 2024 cybersecurity laws mandate data access for surveillance, compromising global tech users.

With 100 million members, the CCP commands a vast, disciplined network. Its growth reflects not just opportunism but ideological commitment among many. To bolster the ideological indoctrination of its members, the CCP created a “copying out the Party’s Constitution” movement, featuring people voluntarily copying out the Party’s Constitution on their wedding nights. This also shows that many are drawn to Xi Jinping’s nationalist vision. This is not a fading ideology but a resurgent one, backed by a $30 trillion economy and a military rivaling America’s. Xi’s numerous speeches reaffirmed “Marxism-Leninism” as the CCP’s guiding force, dismissing Western assumptions of reform. The free world must wake up to the CCP’s nature. It is not a political party but a totalitarian machine bent on global dominance, undermining the rule of law, human rights, and democracy. Democracies must counter its influence through stronger alliances, economic decoupling, and exposing its tactics. Ignoring the CCP’s true character risks ceding the future to a regime that thrives on coercion, not consent.

*  *  *

READ MORE from Shaomin Li:

Bernie Sanders and AOC Go Hunting for Oligarchs

Shut Down the Voice of America — It’s a Relic We Don’t Need

Tariffs Hurt, But They Are the Best Tool We’ve Got

Shaomin Li is a professor of international business at Old Dominion University.