RainDrop

CCP membership is often an honor in China. It provides a lot of benefits for someone to make a living there in the middle kingdom. It is like a passport to good jobs, promotion, and privileges etc. So many Chinese seek a CCP membership due to their desire of making a better living, but not their agreement with the CCP ideology. Not many people in China care about the CCP ideology. If you randomly ask someone in a street in China about how much he/she agrees with the CCP ideology, he/she will most likely stare at you for a minute and then laugh at you as if you are coming from Mars. In the case of young Chinese students demonstrate their enthusiasm to the CCP ideology in front of a foreign English teacher, it is more of a show of nationalism, instead of their embracing the CCP ideology. Nevertheless, as warpedbored pointed out, the basis of the CCP waiver is if you joined because of employment and not ideology, which is the case for majority of CCP Chinese SOs. There was truly a period in China during the early 1990¡¯s right after the Tiananmen Square incident that CCP membership was handed out (even gently forced) to people, particularly to young women.

Communist party issue comes up once at a while. It is like a ghost hovering at the interview. The law regarding CCP is an obsolete law of the cold war era and it is out of touch of reality of today. CCP membership in China is just a way of making a living and most of the time it has nothing to do with ideology. Should a SO tell her CCP membership to satisfy an obsolete law?

Being there with your SO during the interview should be taken as a show of support for your SO, but should not be considered too much as a show of evidence of your strong relationship. The VO is more focusing on the evidence you have already presented in your case instead of waiting to see if you are present or not during the interview. The VO reads your file and makes up his mind most of time before your SO walks into the interview. If you still need to demonstrate your strong relationship at the moment of interview, it might be too late! The timing of an interview is difficult to predict, and as a result, it is not easy for a USC to get out of work and to make to the interview in a short notice. The VO probably understands that, and will not place too much importance whether or not you are present during the interview. For those who want to use the interview to count as a second visit, it is most likely too late. So, if it is feasible for you to go with your SO for the interview, go for it. On the other hand, you should not worry too much of getting a blue slip simply because of your absence during the interview. Your presence will not strengthen a weak case, but your absence will not weaken a strong case either.