Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent a letter to Communist Party members in a hallowed revolutionary site stressing the need for unity ahead of the party’s centenary later this year. State media reported that Xi had told party members in Beizhuang village in Xibaipo – a small town southwest of Beijing that is little known outside of China but widely revered among party loyalists for its association with Mao Zedong – “unity is strength, which is as strong as iron and steel”, in reference to an old revolutionary song. “The history of the CCP, over the past 100 years, has seen the Communist Party uniting and leading the people to strive for a better life, of which the people and cadres who lived in Xibaipo have a very deep understanding,” he said. The Communist Party will celebrate its 100th anniversary in July and Xibaipo occupies a special place in its history as it was the last headquarters of Mao before he moved to Beijing and proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949. Xi visited the town in July 2013 – one year after he became general secretary of the party – urging cadres to follow the “mass line” and stay in touch with the public. Political analysts said Xi, who has started a campaign to study the party’s history, had turned to Mao’s playbook to bolster his authority. Did Japan invasion do Communist Party any favours? Mao, for one, thought so “Xi is hoping to benefit from the halo effect of being Mao’s successor by playing up Xibaipo’s importance in Communist Party’s history,” said Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing. Wu added that Xi wanted to reinforce his authority within the party given the serious rift between China and the United States, plus domestic challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic . Cai Lesu, a retired history professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said Xi’s emphasis on unity underscored China’s current precarious situation. “China needs to unite all the force it can muster – both at home and abroad,” Cai said. Other analysts said the letter to Xibaipo was a “warm-up” for the celebrations in July and the leadership was likely to draw on the party’s history in other events. Zhu Lijia, a professor of public administration at the National Academy of Governance, said party leaders saw a clear connection between learning from history and tackling the immense challenges China faced in a highly unpredictable international environment. “It serves [the purpose] of the Communist Party of reinforcing its ruling position by emphasising learning from history and its relevance for today,” Zhu said. David Shambaugh, a China specialist at George Washington University, said while it was not unusual for party leaders to emphasise history, the key question was “what kind of party history?” He asked: “What is being emphasised, what’s being erased, what’s being distorted, and what’s being redefined? Stolen Mao calligraphy said to be worth billions torn in half by Hong Kong buyer “This year’s 100th anniversary will be particularly interesting to see what aspects of the past are emphasised and which ones are erased from official history. “There are so many sensitive events in the Chinese Communist Party’s past that it will be a good indicator of how confident (or not) the party is in confronting its past.” “We will have to wait and see as the tsunami of party histories will appear over the next four months prior to the anniversary [in July].”