Besides the CPC, there are another eight political parties: the China Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang, the China Democratic League, the China Democratic National Construction Association, the China Association for the Promotion of Democracy, the Chinese Peasants and Workers' Democratic Party, the China Zhi Gong Dang, the Jiusan Society, and the Taiwan Democratic Self-government League. They support the CPC leadership politically, which was the historic choice they made during the long years when they cooperated and fought side by side with the CPC. These democratic parties enjoy political freedom, organizational independence and lawful equality within the fixed scope of the Constitution. The basic principle of the cooperation between the CPC and the other parties is long-term coexistence, mutual supervision, sincere treatment with each other and the sharing of weal and woe.

The democratic parties are neither parties out of office nor opposition parties. They are parties fully participating in the political life of the nation. At present, all the standing committees of the people's congresses, the committees of the CPPCC, government organs at all levels, as well as economic, cultural, educational, scientific and technology and other departments have members of the democratic parties as leaders. For instance, the current chairpersons of the eight democratic parties' central committees hold vice-chairperson posts of the NPC Standing Committee and the CPPCC National Committee. The ranks of the democratic parties have also swelled, and today the total number of members of the democratic parties has reached over 600,000. All the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and large and medium cities now have local and grass-roots organizations of the democratic parties. 

                            The Eight Democratic Parties

Name	Date of Foundation	Main Constituents	Chairperson of Central Committee
ChinaRevolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang	January 1948	Former Kuomintang members and people  having historical connections with the Kuomintang	He Luli
ChinaDemocratic League	October 1941	Higher and mid-level intellectuals	Ding Shisun
ChinaDemocratic National Construction Association	December 1945	Specialists,scholars and other people in the economic field	Cheng Siwei
ChinaAssociation for the Promotion of Democracy	December 1945	Intellectuals working in educational,cultural, scientific, publishing and other fields	Xu Jialu
Chinese Peasants and Workers' Democratic Party	August 1930	Higher and mid-level intellectuals in medical, cultural, educational, and science and technology fields	Jiang Zhenghua
ChinaZhi Gong Dang	October 1925	Returned overseas Chinese, relatives of overseas Chinese, and representative individuals and specialists and scholars with overseas connections	Luo Haocai
Jiusan Society	December 1944	Higher and mid-level intellectuals working in science and technology, culture, education, and public health	Han Qide
TaiwanDemocratic Self-government League	November 1947	People born or with family roots in Taiwan  Province currently  residing on the mainland	Zhang Kehui