Some of my students skipped class this week to attend “the party lecture.’’

This is not the kind of party you normally associate with college students. It’s the Communist Party of China, which runs the country. The CPC was recruiting students on campus, part of its campaign to attract the best and brightest to the world’s biggest political party.

Though less than 7 percent (85 million) of China’s 1.3 billion people are party members, being in the club has its advantages. You must be a party member to get almost any government job or a top position at a business or educational institution that receives government support.

Critics say the CPC has become an elitist group that has forsaken its original mission of uplifting the poor and is now only concerned with enriching and empowering its members.

“When they say, `I care about China,’ my first instinct is not to believe them,’’ Aaron Zhang, an aeronautical engineering student at Beijing’s Beihang University, told CNN in a recent story.

I don’t know if any of my students intend to join the CPC, but some have already benefited from the party’s pitch: They got to miss a day of school.

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Barack Obama is extremely popular with my students.

When I asked one class to write about a person who has made a difference in the world, a half-dozen picked the U.S. president. In another class, I asked the students if they liked Obama. All 25 said yes. One student even adopted Obama as his English name.

Strangely, though, the students struggled to explain why they liked the president. One mentioned his personality and another cited his “good-looking family.’’ None mentioned his political views.

Although there are very few black people in Zhengzhou and my students know almost nothing about black history or culture, one teacher speculated that race is one of the reasons Obama is so admired.

“They know he is the first black president, and they identify with the underdog,’’ she said.