The Chinese Communist Party marks its 100-year anniversary
China celebrates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) today.
Coming to power after having defeated the Chinese nationalists and imperialist Japanese in the 1940s, the populist party claimed it would have made China prosperous by today’s anniversary.
The CCP’s path in achieving this prosperity falls into three broad historical periods, “standing up” (1921~76) when the Party defeated its rivals and established the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong, “getting rich” (1976~97) when Deng Xiaoping liberalized China’s economic system and “becoming powerful” (1997-present). However, Chairman Xi Jinping has used his mandate to make China powerful to instead create a high-tech totalitarian state which crushes dissent and conduct a hyper-aggressive foreign policy.
Expect Chairman Xi to give a speech today at Tiananmen Square lauding the successes of the CCP, successes created by the Party changing goalposts and falsifying statistics to obfuscate their failures. Likewise, expect Xi to call for domestic unification as the international community pushes back against China’s illegal expansion into the South and East China Seas, and genocide of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. Xi—having destroyed all challenge to his rule—will nevertheless stay the course, pushing China further from its promised prosperity and closer to estranged isolationism.
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