Opinion | What Xi Jinping’s speech marking the Communist Party centenary means for the world

Name: Xi Jinping leads celebrations marking centenary of China’s ruling Communist Party
Uploaded: 2021-07-06T00:30:07.000Z
Duration: 4 min 14 s
Description: Xi Jinping leads celebrations marking centenary of China’s ruling Communist Party

Xi painted a benign image of China as a ‘peace-loving’ nation, but he also delivered an unambiguous warning to its adversaries

While India and contemporary Russia were not mentioned in the speech, they will affect Beijing’s options in managing the hegemony of the US and its allies

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and other senior officials attend a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing on July 1. Photo: Xinhua

C. Uday Bhaskar

Published: 8:30am, 6 Jul 2021Updated: 8:30am, 6 Jul 2021

The centenary of the Chinese Communist Party on July 1 was billed as a major national event for China and a personal milestone for President Xi Jinping. His speech deified the Communist Party for its contribution to enabling China to acquire comprehensive national power.

The address, which lasted over an hour, was leavened with nationalism and an exhortation to the Chinese people to remain invested in the ideology of the Communist Party and its current leadership and work towards reclaiming China’s lost glory.

The primary audience for Xi was clearly the 1.4 billion-strong Chinese population and the message had one underlying theme – the centrality of the Communist Party.

Xi framed the party-nation linkage with palpable certitude: “China’s success hinges on the party. The more than 180-year-long modern history of the Chinese nation, the 100-year-long history of the party, and the more than 70-year-long history of the People’s Republic of China all provide ample evidence that without the Communist Party of China, there would be no new China and no national rejuvenation.”

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Xi Jinping leads celebrations marking centenary of China’s ruling Communist Party

China’s growth trajectory in the last eight decades has been extraordinary. From a country that was racked by poverty and a protracted civil war even as World War II was raging, it emerged in 1949 with Mao Zedong at the helm and a communist ideology derived from the Marxist-Leninist template forged in Russia.

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