This article explores the lived contradictions entailed in being a young member of the Chinese Communist Party (ccp) today. The focus is on how political and existential issues intersect. It explores party membership as a strategy for personal mobility among Beijing elite university students by providing an ethnographic account of the quandaries of two young ccp members. Even though one student is of rural origin and the other has an urban elite background, in both cases party membership has been pursued as a strategy for opening paths to the future and tied to a quest for self-development rather than a matter of wishing to make sacrifices for the country. The article focuses on how the two students' efforts play out differently. At the same time it is argued that a sense of moral and existential ambiguity goes hand in hand with both of their party membership strategies, leading to an experience of division.