Former Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, Li Yuefeng, was recently arrested on suspicion of bribery, described by mainland media as a “Democratic Party tiger.” Analysts believe that based on the fact that all former leaders of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League were members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and there is a so-called “cross-party members” system within the CCP, Li Yuefeng is likely a CCP member. The intrigue surrounding the so-called Democratic parties in the CCP regime acting as “satellite parties” has attracted attention.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate of the CCP announced on December 4th that the investigation into the bribery case involving Li Yuefeng, a former member of the National People’s Congress, Deputy Director of the Supervision and Justice Committee, and former Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, has been concluded. He has been arrested for suspicion of bribery.
On March 23 of this year, Li Yuefeng, who was then the Executive Vice Chairman of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, was investigated.
According to Caixin, Li Yuefeng was highlighted as a “senior member of the Democratic Party” and the highest-ranking Democratic Party leader to be investigated after the 18th National Congress of the CCP. The Up Media also referred to him as a “Democratic Party tiger.”
On October 11th, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CCP and the National Supervision Commission website reported that Li Yuefeng was disciplined by the party for violating organization requirements and was referred to the judiciary. Official reports stated that Li Yuefeng’s misconduct included “failing to truthfully report personal matters as required by the organization,” engaging in long-term speculative activities, carrying out new types of corruption through covert means such as “lending money for profit,” and so on.
The report stated that Li Yuefeng’s actions constituted serious violations of official duties and suspicions of bribery, leading to his dismissal from public office by the National Supervision Commission.
Public records show that Li Yuefeng, born in July 1958 in Chongqing, Taiwan, worked in the legal profession for 18 years, later becoming the Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate. He then joined the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference as a Democratic Party representative before rising to the position of the Executive Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, achieving the rank of a senior official.
According to Caixin, Li Yuefeng studied at the Central Party School of the CCP from March to July 2006 and then attended the Autumn Training Course of the Central Party School in September to November 2014.
As one of the very few figures in the CCP’s officialdom, cases of Democratic Party officials being investigated are rare.
Li Yuefeng had once studied at the Central Party School twice, and official reports of his violation of organizational requirements and subsequent party disciplinary actions have drawn public attention.
The full name of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League is the “Taiwan Democratic Self-Government Alliance,” founded by the founder of the Taiwan Communist Party, Xie Xuehong, in Hong Kong before the establishment of the CCP regime. After the establishment of the CCP regime, it became the last of the eight democratic parties.
The so-called “Chinese democratic parties” refer to the eight democratic parties within China, including the China National Revolutionary Committee, the China Democratic League, the China Democratic Building Alliance, the China Democratic Promotion Association, the China Association for Promoting Democracy, the China Zhi Gong Party, the Jiusan Society, and the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government Alliance. In fact, they are all directly under the United Front Work Department of the CCP.
The CCP has always claimed that its multi-party cooperation and political consultation system is a so-called “new type of party system.” However, there have long been comments from the outside world that these democratic parties are not even considered rubber stamps, but at most decorative shells.
In an online discussion on “Zhihu” regarding the experiences of being a member of a Chinese democratic party, a netizen claiming to be a member of the China Democratic Building Alliance, named “Xunzi,” stated that being in a democratic party mainly involves attending various meetings and propaganda events, with little political influence and only a voice within one’s own profession. They suggested that those seeking democracy and freedom should seek alternative paths.
Another netizen named Fan Xidi commented that ordinary Chinese democratic party members mainly attend meetings and drink alcohol excessively.
On December 2nd, Radio Free Asia columnist Gao Xin wrote an article introducing the CCP’s internal system of “cross-party members.”
Gao Xin mentioned that Yu Luming, who was once a vice chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the China Association for Promoting Democracy and a central committee member of the China Agricultural, Forestry and Workers’ Democratic Party, was actually a CCP member, appointed by the CCP United Front Work Department to serve as the Deputy Chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the China Agricultural, Forestry and Workers’ Democratic Party, despite his non-party cadre status.
Gao Xin speculated that before taking up the position of Chairman of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government Alliance in Chongqing, Li Yuefeng might have already joined the CCP organization. Previous leaders of the alliance, known as the Chairman (referring to the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League), were all CCP members. The founder of the alliance, Xie Xuehong, was the founder of the Taiwan Communist Party and a CCP member. The second Chairman, Cai Xiaoxiao, was a veteran of the Red Army and joined the CCP in January 1939.
The third Chairman, Su Ziheng, joined the CCP in January 1928 under the guidance of Pong Taon, then the secretary of the Sendai branch of the CCP’s Traveling Headquarters based in Japan, while studying as a student at Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai.
The fourth Chairman, Lin Shengzhong, secretly joined the underground CCP in Taiwan in the early 1960s while studying in the Department of Geology at National Taiwan University. His CCP membership was not revealed until after his death.
The fifth Chairman, Cai Zimin, joined the underground CCP while serving as the General Secretary of the Taiwan Shanghai Fellow Townsmen Association in 1946, then joined the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government Alliance in July 1949 as assigned by the party organization.
The sixth Chairman, Zhang Kehui, was also a member of the CCP’s underground party in Taiwan in his early years. The seventh Chairman, as introduced in Gao Xin’s article on December 2nd, is Lin Wenyi, who played a key role in promoting Li Yuefeng to the rank of ministerial level.
Gao Xin mentioned that Lin Wenyi’s public resume did not mention his party membership, but a person who studied at the University of Liverpool in the UK in the 1980s recalled that Lin Wenyi must have joined the CCP before his studies in the UK at Tsinghua University.
As for the eighth Chairman, Su Hui, he joined the CCP in 1984 and joined the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government Alliance as part of the “party’s united front work needs.” He was directly promoted to the position of Vice Chairman of the Central Committee in December 2012.
At the end of 2017, mainland media outlet “Political Circle” published an article titled “Father and daughter elected as Chairmen 38 years apart, ‘Dual Party Membership’ attracts attention,” stating that members of the democratic parties could hold both CCP membership and democratic party membership as “cross-party members,” which was a controversial topic within the democratic parties in the 1950s. However, there has been barely any mention of this issue in public records since the 1990s.
The article mentioned that the total number of members in the eight democratic parties in China is less than 1% of the total number of CCP members, and within this less than 1% group, there are individuals with dual membership in the CCP and the democratic parties, known as “cross-party members.” There are two types of cross-party members: those appointed by the CCP to assist the democratic parties and those where some members of the democratic parties apply to join the CCP.
In the membership statistics disclosed by the China Democratic Building Alliance in 2002, the proportion of “cross-party members” in the association was six percent.
Gao Xin stated that according to the regulations of the CPPCC, when calculating the proportion of CCP and non-CCP members among members and standing committee members of all levels of the CPPCC, all “cross-party members” are counted as non-CCP members. Moreover, in the central and local permanent leadership organs of all CCP democratic parties, there are CCP party branches. Because in addition to leaders of these parties possibly being cross-party members, most of the staff in the central and local leadership organs of these parties are directly arranged by the central and local United Front Work Department and most are CCP members.
Gao Xin bluntly stated that this is absurd.
Lin Hui, a writer for the Epoch Times, previously stated that these “satellite parties” played a considerable role in the CCP’s united front work before and after the establishment of the CCP. However, they could not escape the political storms unleashed by the CCP. Especially during the Cultural Revolution, including a large number of high-ranking officials from the democratic parties, representatives of the upper echelons of industry and commerce, as well as figures from minority ethnicities, religions, overseas Chinese communities, and non-party senior intellectuals, were subjected to home raids, struggle sessions, and even persecution leading to their deaths.
For example, Zhang Naiqi, an economist and one of the founders of the Democratic Building, was regularly criticized during the Anti-Rightist Movement of 1957; during the Cultural Revolution, he was tortured and deprived of almost all his belongings. Sun Qimeng, the Chairman of the Democratic Building, was imprisoned in Qin Cheng Prison for eight years during the Cultural Revolution, and his three children also suffered greatly.
During the Anti-Rightist Movement of 1957, Zhang Bojun, who was then the Minister of Transportation and a vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Democratic League, became one of the five high-level Rightists at the central level of the CCP who has yet to be “rehabilitated.” Luo Longji, former Minister of Forest Industry and vice chairman of the Democratic League, experienced the Anti-Rightist Movement and died in 1965.
There are many more Democratic Party officials who have been persecuted or even killed by the CCP.