Leaders of China's eight non-Communist parties made their first ever group debut on Thursday, recounting their cooperation with the ruling party and vowing further contribution to the country's economic and social development. China's non-Communist parties have a combined membership of more than 700,000, or one percent of the 73 million of the Communist Party of China (CPC). They represent specific interest groups, reflect complaints and suggestions from all walks of life and serve as a mode of supervision of the CPC.

They were all established before New China was founded in 1949. The oldest, the China Zhi Gong Party (China Public Interest Party), has 83 years of history.

NON-COMMUNIST MINISTERS

China Zhi Gong Party's central committee chairman Wan Gang was appointed Minister of Science and Technology last April as the first non-Communist party cabinet minister since the late 1970s.

Wan, an automobile engineer who worked with Audi Corporation in Germany and worked as president of Shanghai's Tongji University before taking the government job, described his promotion as "an approval, support and encouragement" from the ruling party and their cooperation as a "scientific, collective and democratic" decision-making process.

He still remembers Premier Wen Jiabao's encouraging words, "as minister you should do your job, be responsible and hold your power," he said in response to a journalist's question at a joint press conference with the other seven non-Communist party leaders.

His party was committed to pooling the wisdom and safeguarding the interests of overseas Chinese.

Most members of the Zhi Gong Party, founded in San Francisco of the United States in 1925, have overseas working and education background.