The first ever white paper on political parties pledges multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). click to read the full text

Released Thursday by the Information Office of the State Council, the white paper, entitled "China's Political Party System", explains in detail the formation, characteristics and development of the system and its role in economic and social development.

Multi-party cooperation is a political system that suits China's conditions, the paper says.

"China will not mechanically copy other countries' political party systems," the document says, adding that the history of modern and contemporary China has proven that blind emulation of the political or party systems of other countries will not succeed.

Zhuang Congsheng, director of the research office of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the CPC, said multi-party cooperation is different from the two-party or multi-party systems in Western countries and the one-party system practised in some other countries. China has established a unique political party system and its own way to fulfill democracy, he said.

In China, the ruling party and other parties share the same ideal and same objectives, said Zhuang.

The white paper says multi-party cooperation has created a new form of political system in the world.

Under this system, the CPC and other parties work closely together and supervise each other, instead of opposing each other, with the CPC ruling the country and the other parties participating in State affairs according to law.

By the end of 2006, 31,000 people who were not CPC members and those without party affiliation took up government posts at and above the county level, the paper says.

Among them, 18 served as deputy chiefs in the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and ministries, commissions, offices and bureaus directly under the State Council.

Minister of Health Chen Zhu and Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang - both educated in Europe - are the first non-CPC members appointed to the Cabinet since the 1970s.

Apart from the CPC, there are eight parties in China: Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, China Democratic League, China National Democratic Construction Association, China Association for Promoting Democracy, Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, China Zhi Gong Dang, Jiu San Society and Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League.