Over 1,000 future power elites to visit from China

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More than 1,000 core members of the Communist Youth League of China - a group of future power elites between the ages of 14 and 28 - will visit Korea next year, an official from the Korea Youth Association said.

“We have confirmed with the Communist Youth League of China recently that 500 high members will visit Korea in March, next year, another 500 in May, and 200 in August,” Song Ki-chul, secretary general of the Korean association’s southern Gyeonggi branch, told the JoongAng Ilbo on Sunday in Beijing.

The number of youth visitors from the league next year is a sharp increase compared to the past five years when some 500 to 600 high-ranking members of the league visited Korea every year. The increase in number is seen as a move to solidify cooperative ties between Korean and Chinese youngsters and to expand people-to-people ties at a time when both countries are each expected to have new leaders next year.

Zhang Rao, vice director of the youth league’s international relations division, also said, “As has been agreed with [Korea’s] youth association, we will maximize our support and take steady interest [in the ties] to activate cooperation between the youths of the two countries that are the future.”

According to Zhang, China’s national television station CCTV will accompany the young Chinese elites on their visit to Seoul and broadcast them in Beijing.

The Communist Youth League of China, an all-purpose school for youth elites, was founded in 1920 in Shanghai, one year before the Communist Party of China was established.

The youth league is responsible for spreading communist ideology to young people and training them to become core members to lead the party’s next generation.

Outgoing President Hu Jintao and incoming Premier Li Keqiang were both first secretaries of the league before automatically being transferred to be members of the Communist Party after turning 28.

By Choi Hyung-kyu, Lee Eun-joo [angie@joongang.co.kr]