WeChat, which is owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd., said that the business messaging service is specifically being designed for work-related communication. (Photo : Reuters)
Communist Party of China (CPC) officials in the provinces are making use of smartphones to improve efficiency.
Owning a personal computer can be costly for the majority of rural China, but the affordability and ubiquity of smartphones are helping people in such areas connect more efficiently.
In East China's Anhui Province, for example, CPC communities collaborate and communicate through applications such as WeChat or QQ, and official accounts are used to reach individual party members.
In Anhui, 40 percent of the rural working population are composed of migrant workers, while 70 percent of the latter work outside the province, according to official data.
"I follow the WeChat account of out township's CPC committee and I like the recruitment information that it sends me," said Lie Je, a party member in Shibali Township.
For Li Hanhui, a party member based in Huatuo Township, she finds it convenient that such technology allows their respective committees to regularly consult members on their needs and other concerns.
Li became an official CPC member in Oct. 2014 after the Huatuo CPC committee launched an online poll designed to deliberate on her application status.
Prior to such a method, probationary party members used to attend a traditional face-to-face hearing to gain full membership.
Observers posit that the adoption of mobile technology is a step toward the improvement of performance of local organizations.
At a national meeting on strengthening rural party committees, Liu Yunshan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, declared that organizations should bear more responsibility in introducing rural reforms.
According to Professor Xie Chuntao, an affiliate of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, the grassroots party committee in the countryside has always been inefficient.
