A county in East China's Zhejiang Province recently announced it would remove 55 unqualified Party members, as part of an experiment to test new "exit mechanisms" through which the Communist Party of China can remove members.

The local government in Pujiang has been evaluating local Party members since April, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Another 430 Party members, who have received warnings, will undergo re-education and be required to correct their misconduct within six months or one year.

The local government outlined 10 standards to evaluate the quality of Party members, including their beliefs and political stances.

An official from the organization department of the local Party committee said that in order to avoid bias, the evaluation process included fact-checking, an initial examination by the Party committee and discussions with the people involved.

"These trials are necessary to help Party members improve their behavior," Liu Suhua, a professor of the Political Science and Law Department at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, told the Global Times.

At a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on January 28, it was emphasized that the CPC membership should be of the  "proper size" and that unqualified members should get the boot. According to the previous reports in the Global Times, similar trials have already been implemented in other regions.

Guangdong Province has been running a trial project since last July among eight organizations, each of which came up with a detailed list of criteria with some even quantifying a member's performance using the list. People who scored less than 60 were considered unqualified and advised to leave the Party.

"The standard of judging whether a Party member is qualified should comply with the Party Constitution and other regulations of the Party," Fu Siming, another professor from the Party School, told the Global Times.

The total number of Party members in China had reached more than 85 million as of 2012, according to the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.