The Civil Service of the People's Republic of China is the administrative system of the traditional Chinese government which consists of all levels who run the day-to-day affairs in China. The members of the civil service are selected through competitive examination. As of 2009, China has about 10 million civil servants who are managed under the Civil Service Law. Most civil servants work in government agencies and departments. State leaders and cabinet members, who normally would be considered politicians in political systems with competing political parties and elections, also come under the civil service in China. Civil servants are not necessarily members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but 95 percent of civil servants in leading positions from division (county) level and above are CCP members. History A professional corps of dedicate bureaucrats, akin to a modern civil service, has been an integral feature of governance in Chinese civilization for much of its history. Part of the motivation was ideological; Confucian teaching discouraged overly involved, warlike, and rowdy rulers alike, making the delegation of legislative and executive authority particularly necessary. During the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046 – 256 BC), records show that kings would send edicts encouraging local officials to identify promising candidates for office in the capital. This practice was intensified under Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141 – 87 BC), who standardized the selection process with the addition of question-and-answer elements on classic texts judged by a panel of scholars. This helped lay the groundwork for the Imperial examination system that would be formed under the short-lived Sui dynasty before being widely adopted thereafter. The examination system and the bureaucracy it engendered would remain in place in some form until the dissolution of the Qing dynasty in 1911. Mao-era cadres The People's Republic of China did not initially maintain a formal civil service like other countries of the era. As the CCP gained ground in the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang (KMT), it instead used dedicated Party cadres to oversee and administer territories it took over. The CCP, at the time of its victory in 1949, faced a serious shortage of qualified personnel to the fill over 2.7 million public positions needed to govern the country that had previously been occupied by KMT-affiliated officials, some of whom the Party had to allow to continue to work due to lack of suitable replacements. By the mid-1950s, China had