The United Front Work System and the Nonparty Elite

The Central United Front Work Department (UFWD) is the main organization responsible for managing the nonparty elite—the "social elite" as distinct from the political elite—to ensure that it is both supportive of and useful to the ruling party. The director of the UFWD is head of the party committee, a very powerful component as in all party organs. He is "head of the nonparty clan"; the UFWD is assigned by the CCP to "represent" its constituencies' interests via other "clans" within the bureaucratic system/extended family, but also to be responsible for their behavior. In the mid-1980s, the nonparty elite raised the issue of "saving the middleaged intellectuals". The CCP reformers wanted to implement a prointellectual policy to gain allies against entrenched bureaucrats, who were dragging their heels against giving out higher wages, hiring and promoting intellectuals, and so on.