Published: Less than 10 min ago
There has long been one, but now there is no longer a woman in the powerful Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party.
When its 24 members were announced as the party congress concluded this weekend, Sun Chunlan was missing. The 72-year-old deputy prime minister was previously the only female member.
As President Xi Jinping and his allies consolidated power within the party, only men were promoted to the upper hierarchy. The party’s standing committee consists of Xi and six other men. Of the Central Committee’s 205 members, around five percent are women.
Since 2001, there has been an informal quota system where at least one woman must take a seat in all party and government bodies except the Politburo. A total of six women have taken their place there since 1948. The standing committee has so far only consisted of men.
Of the autocratic Communist Party’s roughly 96 million active members, 29 percent are estimated to be women.