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What percentage of Chinese citizens are actual party members? Honest question, I have no idea, but if I had to wager I would guess not a very large percentage.

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From some estimate they have about 80 million members. Because becoming a party member is a prerequisite to any degree of success in China, both in business or government. Being a member one has to abide by very strict internal party rules (not the kind of code of conduct/ethics you are thinking). It is a completely top-down organization. You don't get to decide your party leader, sorry!

90 million according to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China

It's hard to assume that the CCP doesn't have the mandate of the people. We just don't know one way or another since there are no free elections.

Chinese people join the CCP not because they identify with the communist ideals. They join because it gives access to a lot of resources and power that is otherwise unavailable to outsiders. It is essentially a gangster of national proportion, and behaves exactly like one, and they own the army.

Yeah, I know that, my mom joined the Romanian Communist Party in the early ‘80s for the same thing (so that she could more easily get food for young me), but that doesn’t make that entire generation less to blame as a whole.

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