But if you cross him, then he will banish you from the family."
"If you respect him, he might show you some favors. Everything he says goes," said Deng Yuwen, a former senior editor at a party-run newspaper who now lives in the U.S. "The party is like the patriarch of a big, traditional Chinese family.
That includes the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, in which an untold number of civilians and students were killed as troops put a fatal end to pro-democracy protests in the very square where Xi delivered his speech today. During numerous crises in the past seven decades of its rule, the party decided to retain top-down control of the country's political levers each time. She now lives in the U.S., where she has become a prominent critic of Xi.īut resistance is now quickly stifled by a powerful surveillance and security apparatus. But it cannot," says Cai Xia, a former Communist Party professor who was expelled from its ranks last year. "The party feels that it can govern forever. This consolidation of his control over the party as well as the party's control over all levels of state governance has sparked pushback. "There is no other party in the world like ours, one that has encountered so many challenges and difficulties, experienced so many life-or-death ordeals, or suffered such tragic sacrifices," wrote an editorial in China's preeminent Communist Party-run newspaper, People's Daily. He has overseen the most thorough purge of Communist party officials since the 1970s on anti-corruption grounds, jailed his high-level political rivals, and brought powerful business tycoons to heel. Xi's message of strength masks any internal divisions that may have emerged in the decades since the party came to power. China's economy has expanded and with it, its general power." Consolidation of power "Nowadays China has caught up with the rest of the world. We were standing at the bottom of the stairs when the West was at the top," said Hu Xijin, the editor in chief of the Global Times, a nationalist government paper. We could only look up at Western countries. On this count, China now boasts an economic might that can cripple smaller economics, and a geopolitical heft that has earned it spots in nearly every major multilateral institution.
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Key among the achievements Xi listed in the party's centennial celebrations was the elimination of extreme poverty and a series of economic reform that unleashed a commercial boom while also widening social inequality.īut the primary raison d'être for the Communist Party always has been pursuing what the party calls the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" - a nation that, in 1921, remained ravaged by civil war, imperial mismanagement, and foreign colonialism.
The same date was then chosen to implement a sweeping National Security Law, which already has quieted nearly all dissent in the territory. By no coincidence, July 1 is also the anniversary for the resumption of Chinese control over Hong Kong. He also said Beijing would maintain its iron grip over Hong Kong. However, nearly two decades later, party leaders sheltering in the dusty caves of China's northern city of Yan'an decided July 1 would be the official date of commemoration.įor Xi and other leaders at the helm of the party, this year's birthday is an important chance to recast an organization originally designed to foment revolution among rural peasants into one that can be seen as a powerful government overseeing an increasingly sophisticated global economy.Īsia China Sends A Record 28 Military Planes Into Airspace Controlled By Taiwan "Only socialism can save China, and only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China." From a secret meeting on a boat to a world superpowerĬhina's Communist Party was actually founded on Jby a mixture of Chinese and foreign revolutionaries in Shanghai.įearful of spies, a group of Chinese-only members reached their final agreements on a boat in nearby Zhejiang province. "The Communist Party of China and the Chinese people, with their bravery and tenacity, solemnly proclaim to the world that the Chinese people are not only good at taking down the old world, but also good at building a new one," Xi proclaimed. Wearing a grey Mao suit and flanked by party leaders past and present, Xi spent more than an hour laying out the Communist Party's achievements over the past century while making the case that it remains the only political force capable of governing China.