Only Some Party Members Are Good

Flip Side to Fame in China by Mark Magnier

...the leaders hope to defuse the growing instability and discontent fueled by China's yawning wealth gap, potentially a huge challenge to their rule. There were 58,000 protests and riots across the country in 2003, or 160 a day, many over perceived abuses by local authorities, according to government statistics, which could be underreporting the problem.

"Could be"? I'd say they are almost certainly underreporting it.

Hoping to reduce the pressure, China's leadership has eliminated taxes for farmers, increased subsidies and vowed to act against unjust land seizures.

"Has eliminated"? I'd say the leadership has decreed that they should be eliminated. Whether they will or not is another question. One reason that it will be so hard is because of corrupt local politicians, but the party doesn't dare permit widespread elections, because it's afraid of how poorly it would do. And it's not just elections that are forbidden:

China's Communist Party maintains its monopoly on political power by delivering benefits to its 1.3 billion people, in line with governments worldwide. It also guards its turf jealously by ensuring that watchful party officials sit in every corner of society deemed a potential threat to that monopoly. This entails everything from "officially sanctioned" religious organizations and political parties to sports groups, chambers of commerce, university departments and farm collectives.

Groups viewed as a threat are quickly batted down, as seen with official crackdowns on Tibetan monks, Falun Gong practitioners, separatist Muslims in the country's west and Internet essayists. A recently published list of banned gatherings, which included an amateur singing club, a pigeon lovers group and a dozen people holding a ceremony to bless a new building, shows how jittery the party can be.

Then they cite a woman who has joined the Party:
"Many friends think it's like joining a corrupt group," she said. "I still think some party members are good, but I wouldn't say most."

Only "some" party members are good; not "most". Wow.