AMN/ WEB DESK
China’s ruling party The Communist Party of China will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding on 1st July 2021. Chinese capital Beijing is under unprecedented state of security control ahead of Thursday celebrations at historic Tiananmen square with armed police forces and surveillance cameras all around the city.
Some of the latest helicopters and fighter jets conducted rehearsals a few days ago. The sprawling Tiananmen Square, where the Great Hall of People is located, has been completely blocked for about a month. Various activities are being held across the country to celebrate the milestone, with most focusing on the party’s history.
President Xi presented centenary medals to 29 CPC members on Tuesday who have made “outstanding contributions to the Party and the people”. A grand cultural show was also organised on Monday at National Stadium in Beijing. Chinese govt has extended special invitations to the attendees for the 100th anniversary celebrations including foreign journalists but much of the celebrations were shrouded in secrecy.
The highlight of the occasion, according to officials, is an address to a special gathering in the morning at around 8 am by President Xi Jinping.
No other detail is available about the Thursday morning celebrations. Xi’s address would be telecast live by official television channel China Central Television CCTV. As per the reports, rehearsals have been done secretively. Streets across the country are filled with communist party slogans.
Journalists who are invited to attend Thursday’s event are required to get both the doses of the Chinese COVID-19 vaccines.
They have also been asked to produce a negative certificate of coronavirus test taken 48 hours before the event besides a second test before checking into a designated hotel on Wednesday from where they will be taken to the venue in the early hours.
Much of the focus would be on Xi’s speech, considering China faces global adversity over the origins of the COVID-19, allegations of genocide against Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang, massive crackdown in Hong Kong to silent the pro-democracy voices and anti-govt protests.
Besides, 100the anniversary of CPC, 1st July will also be the first anniversary of the imposition of stringent National Security Law in Hong Kong by Beijing.
In past one year, Beijing has cracked down on dissenting voices in Hong Kong leading to hundreds of arrests, property seizures and electoral changes in Hong Kong legislature.
China, which had stopped international travel to most of the countries after the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan in December 2019 and became a global pandemic, has contained the spread of the virus with stringent measures, though it continued to report a handful of cases every day in different parts of the country.
The US, EU, Japan and a host of western countries have mounted a united campaign to rein in China’s authoritarian governance at home and its attempts to forge a new global order with multi-billion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The CPC was founded by Mao Zedong and his associates in 1921.
It fought bloody wars at home both against political rivals and the Japanese occupation and took over power in 1949 forming the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The CPC has undergone a total ideological makeover after Mao’s death in 1976.
On the brink of collapse after Mao’s disastrous ideological experiments like the 1958 “Great Leap Forward” and the 1966 ”Cultural Revolution”, which resulted in the deaths of over 1.5 million people, the CPC was revived by moderate “paramount leader” Deng Xiaoping.
Deng replaced Mao’s hardline Marxism with a pragmatic ideology of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” which supposedly helped China to emerge as the second-largest economy of the world.