At a global summit on the status of women, 30 years after the Beijing Conference, the Chinese president pledged funding to UN Women and new, pro-women worldwide cooperation. Yet, since 2022, the Politburo has been entirely male. Meanwhile, discrimination is rising again in the workplace in China after the abrupt shift from the one-child policy to a pro-natalist policy.

Milan (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The Global Leaders' Meeting on Women topped the news of the week in Chinese official media with delegates from 110 countries and international organisations converging in Beijing to discuss the status of women worldwide.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) strongly pushed for the initiative to mark the 30th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in the Chinese capital in 1995, which was a major global event.

In fact, Chinese President Xi Jinping was keen to address the gathering on Monday to take credit for the PRC as a leader in efforts to reduce the gender gap in today's world.

Xi pledged US$ 10 million over the next five years to UN Women, the United Nations agency set up in 2010 to promote the empowerment of women and girls and gender equality.

He also announced that China would invite 50,000 women to participate in exchange and training programmes in the country.

On the eve of the summit, Beijing freely reported data on its contribution to the cause, such as over 1,200 Chinese women engaged in UN peacekeeping missions, 36.7 per cent of women in the personnel deployed abroad in international cooperation, and about 100 maternal health projects underway in developing countries.

Yet, as many have pointed out, despite successes, this does not present a full picture of the status of women in China.

While Xi emphasised the key role of women in China's economic and social development in his speech, stating that they represent over 40 per cent of the workforce, and newspapers showed off images of Chinese female astronauts, other indicators point out that the gender gap has widened over the past few years.

Much has been said in this regard. Since the start in 2022 of Xi's third five-year mandate as general secretary of the Communist Party, for the first time in 25 years, no women are in the 24-member Politburo, the central decision-making body of the Communist Party of China.

According to the World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, China fell to 103rd out of 148 countries, a sharp decline from 61st place in 2011 during Hu Jintao's leadership.

Some observers also remember the harsh crackdown against feminist activists who attempted to launch their own #MetToo campaign against gender violence, on Chinese social media and elsewhere.

A more comprehensive analysis of the Chinese government’s white paper “China's Achievements in Women's Well-Rounded Development in the New Era” appeared in the Indian newspaper The Tribune, signed by Eerishika Pankaj, director of the Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA), a New Delhi-based think-tank.

“[I]t would be remiss to overlook the substantial advances Chinese women have made in areas such as education, healthcare access and poverty reduction,” writes the Indian scholar.

“Women,” she adds, “now account for more than half of university graduates, and female literacy rates have risen dramatically compared to a generation ago.”

At the same time, “In rural areas, targeted poverty alleviation campaigns have improved maternal healthcare and expanded opportunities for women to engage in non-agricultural employment.” Yet, despite this, “there remains significant work to be done.”

Among the issues highlighted is the impact of the abrupt shift from the one-child policy to pro-natalist measures to address the country’s demographic crisis.

As a result, subsidies and longer parental leave now tend to be viewed by Chinese employers as a cost, fuelling discrimination.

“Women report being asked about marriage or childbearing intentions during job applications, far more often than men,” Eerishika Pankaj said.

What is more, Confucian ideas persist, reinforcing gender hierarchies. “While the Party frames gender equality as a socialist achievement, cultural expectations – women as caretakers, men as breadwinners – remain deeply embedded.”

Surveys show that women earn significantly less than men, face a glass ceiling in management positions, and even face appearance-related pressures in recruitment.

“[W]omen mobilised when useful to the state, then relegated to domesticity when political priorities shifted,” Eerishika Pankaj said.

“The paradox of China’s gender politics is thus laid bare. Women are indispensable to the Party’s modernisation project, but their rights remain contingent – elevated when aligned with national objectives, curtailed when inconvenient.”

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• china
• xi jinping
• women
• rights
• gender gap
• discrimination
• communist party