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A leak containing a register with the details of nearly two million CCP members
- draugadrotten 6y agoNews report: https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6215946537001 https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6215946537001
- ardy42 6y ago> “Along with the personal identifying details of 1.95 million communist party members, mostly from Shanghai, there are also the details of 79,000 communist party branches, many of them inside companies”. According to Wikipedia, there are 91 million members, so this isn't a complete list. I wonder what the source database was for.
- sjwright 6y agoI'd imagine that a large number of those 91 million are people who hold membership for the purpose of group identification and virtue signalling, not because they have a specific role in a hierarchy.
- ardy42 6y ago> I'd imagine that a large number of those 91 million are people who hold membership for the purpose of group identification and virtue signalling, not because they have a specific role in a hierarchy. You're correct that most party members have "have [no] specific role in a hierarchy," but "group identification and virtue signalling," seriously? That feels like an inappropriate transfer of some stereotypes of the English-speaking left to the CCP. My understanding is that most people who join do so because being a member offers small privileges, like preferences in hiring.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago> "group identification and virtue signalling," seriously? That feels like an inappropriate transfer of some stereotypes of the English-speaking left to the CCP. Why do you feel it is inappropriate? Human nature is human nature, its not as though Chinese are a sub-species of humans that has different psychology than American sub-species. People signaling values and identifying with groups is human nature. > My understanding is that most people who join do so because being a member offers small privileges, like preferences in hiring. Yes there are benefits to being in a group and sharing values with those in power.
- ardy42 6y ago> Why do you feel it is inappropriate? Because my understanding is that most Chinese people do not consider the CCP to be virtuous nor do they "identify" with it. That's not to say they're dissidents, but more semi-deliberately indifferent and have knowledge of and experience with government corruption. Even people who work for the party are often just going through the motions.
- chordalkeyboard 6y agoThanks for the reply. > Because my understanding is that most Chinese people do not consider the CCP to be virtuous nor do they "identify" with it. Perhaps its not meant to signal virtue to the majority but instead to the decision makers. Perhaps the majority do not identify as a member but the members do. > Even people who work for the party are often just going through the motions. That would be covered by signaling virtue.
- ardy42 6y ago> Perhaps its not meant to signal virtue to the majority but instead to the decision makers. Perhaps the majority do not identify as a member but the members do. That's not "virtue signalling." If everyone involved in the interaction is cynical about the organization, no virtue is being signaled. The "decision makers" most of all know the true nature of the party. I think the word you're really looking for is just "signalling" or at least a different kind of signaling than "virtue signalling." You're really torturing that term into meaninglessness here. "Virtue signalling" really only applies to situations where at least some people genuinely think they're signalling virtue or that others would actually perceive it that way. One end or the other can be cynical, but not both.
- lysp 6y agoSky News Australia is the equivalent of Fox News in the US. I wouldn't take anything said on there as accurate or fact-checked.
- throwawawawaway 6y agoNot to agree or disagree on Sky News Australia. Just on the dataset itself, by searching for my previous company I found many people I know of, and I can at least say that the 'hometown', 'organization' and 'education' information is accurate for a few I checked.
- Yetanfou 6y agoSo? Thu Guardian is the equivalent of the New York Times of the Washington Post in the USA, that does not mean you can't believe anything they print. News sources have biases, as long as you know those biases and (very important) know and acknowledge your own bias you can and should use those sources to get an idea of what the news really is. This is why I do not use a single source, nor a single aggregator as a news source but instead look at sources ranging from the Guardian to the Wall Street Journal as well as a bevy of "alternative" news sources. The 'net makes this possible, use the possibility. Just squawking about the bias of sources which do not correspond with your own bias is a part of the problem, not a part of the solution. By the way, it is disheartening to see the growth in the number of throw-away accounts used in discussions like these. Stand up for your opinions, dare to voice them, don't hide for the cancel mob. Use your real account even if - or maybe especially if - you expect the mob to pounce. It is only when "established" users show they are not afraid to speak up that the mob can be beaten.
- bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y agoThis is a pretty naive way to assess new information, for the record.
- dang 6y agoWe changed the url from https://gitlab.com/shanghai-ccp-member-db/shanghai-ccp-member-db https://gitlab.com/shanghai-ccp-member-db/shanghai-ccp-membe... to that. Thanks!
- richiaruhito 6y agoto what?
- spamaccnt 6y agoThat link is down. Does anyone else have a link to it?
- edsteppy33 6y agoto what my dude? is this data still accessible or is it being systematically wiped?
- dang 6y agoTo https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6215946537001 https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6215946537001, which was the URL in the comment I was replying to (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25410636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25410636). I don't usually repeat the URL when I say such things because (a) it's right in the parent comment, and (b) once we change it, it's linked at the top of the thread too. I don't know anything about that data, sorry. Just the janitor.
- loulou7 6y agono data available and this "news" is from 2016
- forkLding 6y agoUsually communist party members in your company in China isn't a big secret, it's pretty much public info because the top 10% elite usually get invited and are allowed into the party. Also the desks of communist party members in the company will usually have communist party emblems and chinese flags indicating their status as a Communist Party member, it's not taboo to do so. Most top companies will gather top job candidates which will include communist party members who work as lawyers, developers, etc (aka normal jobs) and they will list their CCP membership on their resumes. So this is more doxxing I would say as the vast majority of communist party members working at a company are regular people. Source on Communist Party entrance process: https://daily.jstor.org/communist-party-of-china/ https://daily.jstor.org/communist-party-of-china/
- verroq 6y agoYes this is true. Being a party member is just passing a test and paying the membership fee.
- ardy42 6y ago> Yes this is true. Being a party member is just passing a test and paying the membership fee. Not really. I have a friend who nearly joined in college. They had several rounds of applications: the first few went to kids with connections (or whose connections put them in a good position, e.g. appointed to be some kind of student government thing). Once those groups were exhausted, other kids got a chance. My friend was a very good student, but got a no-so-subtle message from the school official running the process that they wouldn't be considered without a bribe.
- jagsbdjdksj 6y agoCitation needed?
- ardy42 6y agoLike I said, it's a personal experience from a friend I trust. But if you need a cite, try this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25411282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25411282.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- fatsdomino001 6y agoSomeone should throw the sqlite database up with Datasette, probably some very interesting faceted search that could be had here
- simonw 6y agoIf you want to try it out on a Mac laptop you can do the following: brew install datasette # if you don't have it already wget https://gitlab.com/shanghai-ccp-member-db/shanghai-ccp-member-db/-/raw/master/shanghai-ccp-member.db datasette shanghai-ccp-member.db --setting sql_time_limit_ms 10000 --setting facet_time_limit_ms 10000 I recommend bumping up those default time limits because the database has almost 2,000,000 rows in and faceting will time out if you don't increase them. You can easily facet by sex, ethnicity, hometown and organization using the cog icon on each column. The data is all in Chinese so you'll need to run it through a translator to see what it means.
- simonw 6y agoAlso interesting: the latest version of my sqlite-utils CLI tool added a new "sqlite-utils analyze-tables shanghai-ccp-member.db" command which outputs interesting statistics about table columns - documentation here: https://sqlite-utils.readthedocs.io/en/stable/cli.html#analyzing-tables https://sqlite-utils.readthedocs.io/en/stable/cli.html#analy... Here's a partial output from running it against that database file: member.name: (2/11) Total rows: 1956731 Null rows: 0 Blank rows: 0 Distinct values: 1072319 Most common: 650: 张伟 621: 张敏 620: 王伟 579: 张磊 507: 王磊 488: 陈洁 479: 张杰 448: 王勇 442: 李伟 434: 张静 member.sex: (3/11) Total rows: 1956731 Null rows: 0 Blank rows: 0 Distinct values: 2 Most common: 1229406: 男 727325: 女 member.ethnicity: (4/11) Total rows: 1956731 Null rows: 0 Blank rows: 0 Distinct values: 51 Most common: 1935764: 汉族 7636: 回族 4588: 满族 2282: 蒙古族 1468: 土家族 954: 壮族 741: 朝鲜族 638: 苗族 351: 白族 319: 侗族 member.hometown: (5/11) Total rows: 1956731 Null rows: 0 Blank rows: 0 Distinct values: 2875 Most common: 846850: 上海 350361: null 139903: 江苏 80958: 浙江 29935: 上海宝山 29705: 山东 26366: 上海崇明 26120: 安徽 17697: 上海嘉定 14745: 上海南汇 member.organization: (6/11) Total rows: 1956731 Null rows: 0 Blank rows: 0 Distinct values: 77453 Most common: 3533: 退休支部 1925: 第一党支部 1796: 机关党支部 1759: 校逾期未归 1552: 退休一支部 1528: 第二党支部 1508: 退休二支部 1443: 退休党支部 1243: 第三党支部 955: 离退休党支部 member.education: (11/11) Total rows: 1956731 Null rows: 0 Blank rows: 0 Distinct values: 22 Most common: 589531: 大学 360788: 大专 300370: 初中 230117: 普通高中 161803: 硕士研究生 158041: 中等专科 93859: 小学 25460: 博士研究生 14729: 技工学校 8894: 其他
- blackrock 6y agoDon’t they have something like 100 million members? Given a population of 1.4 billion people, then this membership list is something like 7% of the population. Some countries don’t even have 100 million people. And it doesn’t even seem like you need to be anybody special to even join. Although I’m sure that the elite at the top, socializes often with CCP members for societal and business needs. I’m certain that people in the west are making this out to be more of a bigger issue than it really is.
- whoevercares 6y agoTo join prior to college is pretty hard and normally with great visibility if one made it. Otherwise it’s like a chore task for common students who cannot afford go abroad and wishes to join state owned enterprise
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoApparently some of the people on the list hold positions in Western companies. Which is probably of interest to those businesses and citizens of those countries.
- messick 6y agoPerhaps to people who watch too much Fox News.
- thoughtstheseus 6y agoSomeone with access to Factset, Bloomberg, etc. could likely check this quickly?
- DoctorNick 6y agoMcCarthyism is back, baby! This time with extra racism!
- frozenport 6y agoYou wouldn't hire a Nazi would you? I'd like to screen my candidates against this list.
- baybal2 6y agoIt's Shanghai out of all places. If it is indeed 4 years old, then it may well be just a plain leak. If not, then it may well be an innuendo. Zeng Qinghong, and his motherlode of scoop on every major player in the party is said to be the only reason Xi can't touch Jiang Zemin, and his first circle personally. If new explosive leaks will emerge on current establishment in coming months, especially if they cover time in nineties-noughties, then if will be a red flag, pun intended.
- SubiculumCode 6y agoInteresting speculation. Makes me wonder at some other improbable, but not impossible speculations, maybe retribution or warning shot over the arrest of media tycoon Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong...news corps might sit on whole treasure troves of leaks.
- powerapple 6y agoI have always assumed these information is not sensitive anyway. It is not a secret party. Party members have meetings regularly so everyone knows who is in the party or not. I didn't look into the leak though.
- Fjolsvith 6y agoWhat is interesting is that many of them are on the boards of international, foreign corporations.
- elevenoh 6y agoHow full is zoom of CPP employees? Oh wait, we can't talk about that. It'll be interesting to see which politicians & tech co's continue to bend the knee to china.
- underseacables 6y agoI would say there are some at this very moment who owe their election to office to the CPP.
- ilikehurdles 6y agoNot sure how significant CPP is for elections, but why wouldn’t the CCP be involved in elections? They have thousands of elected members. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China
- _0xDEADBEEF_ 6y agoThere is no real election in China. On paper, there is an election process like described on wikipedia, but the reality is so far from it. Yes, one can vote, but only for the person they choose. CCP literally owns the "election". Zoom's censorship has been called out many times. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/23/937336309/welcome-to-the-party-zoom-video-apps-rules-lead-to-accusations-of-censorship https://www.npr.org/2020/11/23/937336309/welcome-to-the-part...
- ilikehurdles 6y agoWho isn’t allowed to talk about that, and how?
- Kaze404 6y agoWhy are we posting and discussing doxxing information?
- gHosts 6y agoLet me guess what happens next... Coming up shortly at a Chinese github like thing near you... Republican Party membership list.
- blackrock 6y agoYeah, this sounds like a doxxing attack. Think of it this way, Americans don’t like their names to show up on a list, and to have their privacy violated. But why is it ok to do this to normal people of a foreign country? What if the China government authorized a retaliation to this, and instructed their hackers to infiltrate the American voting databases. They would post who is a registered Republican. Who voted for what measures and which candidates. And who donated to whatever causes. Whether it was gay rights or pro-racist laws. As Americans, the confidentiality of your vote is considered sacred. But, it’s not really a complete secret. Since your ballot has a serial number, to ensure authenticity, and that serial number can be tied to you. And given all the new electronic voting devices being used, I’m certain it’s now easier to make this correlation. Anyways, certain civil behaviors still apply here. Do unto others, as you’d like it done to you.
- hertzrat 6y agoWhat information is in this dataset that is interesting to people? Is it just a membership list, and is membership secret? Is it just to learn about whether famous companies have senior members in the ccp?
- mstaoru 6y agoSo much of the information in this thread is false. You don't need any special invitation or application to join the party. In fact, NOT joining the party can be a signal and a problem, which might complicate business setup, banking applications, things like applying for a car plate, etc. My Chinese wife's data and my address is in the DB, but I'm not sure if it does anybody any good. So? Am I the enemy of the Free World now? Will I get hate letters? Death threats? She despises CCP and Xi as much as I do, but this is also very stupid and irresponsible to put this kind of information up for everybody's access.
- markus_zhang 6y ago>You don't need any special invitation or application to join the party. In fact, NOT joining the party can be a signal and a problem, which might complicate business setup, banking applications, things like applying for a car plate, etc. This is false information, I'd say the b word actually if you are really Chinese (you need to be a Party member to apply for car plate? WTF...)...You do need application to join the Party, and not joining the party is perfectly OK (China only has 100M Party member). It was only in decades ago that joining the Party was kind of automatic because there was not much private economy, definitely not the case for today. A lot of people still apply and join, for their own benefit, but it's a choice, not a mandatory (Neither me and my wife joined and our careers were pretty good).
- mstaoru 6y ago> you need to be a Party member to apply for car plate? WTF... You mean the plate lottery in Beijing is REALLY a lottery?..
- powerapple 6y agoYes, it is.
- powerapple 6y agoHe is lying only because his name is in the list and don't want US to think him as the enemy of the US. Liars are always liars. I am pretty sure there are many of these kind of people join the party to take advantage of the system. No, you don't need to join the party unless you want to climb the ladder in government offices and state institutes. It is not mandatory but it does help. *typo
- tangbaohn 6y agoNo surprise that no one cares about their privacy.
- edsteppy33 6y agolooks like the data has been deleted. anyone know where i can access this now that the git link is erased
- _0xDEADBEEF_ 6y agohttps://github.com/ccpdata/ShanghaiCCPMember https://github.com/ccpdata/ShanghaiCCPMember
- edsteppy33 6y agowhy are the files 4 months old? looks like the same data set though. guess the leak wasnt anything new... thanks
- _0xDEADBEEF_ 6y agoNot new, the dataset has been around for years.
- edsteppy33 6y agolooks like this one just doesnt have and organization column, which might be the most interesting part of the leak... EDIT: I take that back, seems like "unit" is organization.
- dirtyid 6y agoOld leak repurposed by newly formed IPAC, basically whose-who of anti-China politicians for anyone following the space. AKA more coordinated mccarthyism propaganda from usual suspects. Nothing much to this but doxxing a bunch of people for red scare. Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China https://ipac.global/#team https://ipac.global/#team