Party Looks Beyond China's 'Miss Fix-It'

As Politburo's Only Woman Retires, Officials Urge Improved 'Democracy'

BEIJING -- Vice Premier Wu Yi, the only woman in China's 24-member Politburo, is known in the West as China's Miss Fix-It, a steely and capable problem solver often assigned to tackle high-profile issues such as food safety, contentious trade talks and the SARS health crisis.

But as the 68-year-old prepares to retire this year, it remains unclear whether Communist Party officials -- voting this week by secret ballot -- will elevate any other women into the senior leadership.

The party long ago declared equality between men and women, but the country is still deeply patriarchal. A male-dominated party center calls the shots, promoting women mostly to positions that lack influence, or assigning them to traditional fields such as health or education.

Women, who are not represented on the all-powerful nine-member Standing Committee, make up less than 8 percent of the significantly lower-ranking Central Committee. Even in the current crop of party chiefs and governors in each province, only one, Qinghai governor Song Xiuyan, is a woman.

Historically, women in Chinese politics are not regarded as particularly trustworthy. The ruthlessly ambitious Jiang Qing, wife of Chairman Mao Zedong, took most of the blame for the disastrous Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and '70s.

But officials trying to demonstrate the party's relevance now talk frequently about improving "democracy" within it. It's a shift that has been forced in part by changes in Chinese society, as an economic boom has allowed many people to get rich without necessarily rising through the party ranks.

Among the 2,213 delegates who have descended on the Great Hall of the People for the party congress, about 20 percent are women, an increase of 2 percent from the last congress, in 2002. (In the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, women hold about 16 percent of the seats.) For many female party leaders, that's progress, even as they admit that there is still bias against them.

"I think that at grass-roots level, more and more women have joined the party," said Zuo Chengqin, party secretary of a cotton production company in Jiangsu province who was attending her first congress and snapping photos in front of the Great Hall last week.

"Based on what I see in our local area, I think more women are taking important roles inside the party," Zuo said. "We have women who help govern Nantong city, and also women in the local standing committee, though none are yet in the number one position."

Inside the Great Hall, Liang Yiping, 60, sat near the party chief of Fujian province as he presided over a delegation that is among those with the highest number of female representatives.

Liang is chairwoman of the Fujian Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a government advisory body. She worked her way up from a technician's job in an electricity factory to mayor of Fujian province's Zhangzhou city, later becoming the influential party secretary of Fujian's Inspection and Disciplinary Committee.

"More women are being chosen to the policy decision level, like me. It's not just for show to have more women in the party, because if you are just a vase, you will lose in a competitive election," she said.