-Pledges China’s ‘reunification’ with Taiwan on party’s birthday
-Asserts China will never allow foreign bullying
-Highlights CPC achievement in the past century
-Says Chinese nation carries no aggressive or hegemonic traits in its genes
-Claims China has realized the first centenary goal, building a moderately prosperous society in all respects
-Deliveres key speech at a grand gathering celebrating the centenary of the CPC’s founding at Tian’anmen Square
Beijing: Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, delivered an important speech at a grand gathering celebrating the centenary of the CPC’s founding at Tian’anmen Square in Beijing on Thursday.
A 100-gun salute was fired in the morning, representing the 100 years of the Party. A national flag-raising ceremony was held. A congratulatory message jointly issued by eight other political parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and personages without party affiliation was read out at the ceremony.
Here are some highlights from Xi’s speech:
– China has realized the first centenary goal — building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
– The CPC has united and led the Chinese people over the past 100 years for one ultimate theme — bringing about the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
– The Party unites and leads the Chinese people in fighting bloody battles with unyielding determination, achieving great success in the new democratic revolution.
– The Party unites and leads the Chinese people in endeavoring to build a stronger China with a spirit of self-reliance, achieving great success in the socialist revolution and construction.
– The Party unites and leads the Chinese people in freeing the mind and forging ahead, achieving great success in reform, opening-up and socialist modernization.
– The Party unites and leads the Chinese people in pursuing a great struggle, a great project, a great cause and a great dream through a spirit of self-confidence, self-reliance and innovation, achieving great success for socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.
Moreover, China will not allow itself to be bullied and anyone who tries will face “broken heads and bloodshed in front of the iron Great Wall of the 1.4 billion Chinese people,” President Xi Jinping said at a mass gathering Thursday to mark the centenary of the ruling Communist Party.
Wearing a grey buttoned-up suit of the type worn by Mao Zedong, Xi spoke from the balcony of Tiananmen Gate, emphasizing the party’s role in bringing China to global prominence and saying it would never be divided from the people.
Xi, who is head of the party and leader of the world’s largest armed forces also said China had restored order in Hong Kong following antigovernment protests in the semi-autonomous city in 2019 and reiterated Beijing’s determination to bring self-governing Taiwan under its control.
He received the biggest applause, however, when he described the party as the force that had restored China’s dignity and turned it into the world’s second largest economy since taking power amid civil war in 1949.
“The Chinese people are a people with a strong sense of pride and self-confidence,” Xi said. “We have never bullied, oppressed or enslaved the people of another nation, not in the past, during the present or in the future.”
“At the same time, the Chinese people will absolutely not allow any foreign force to bully, oppress or enslave us and anyone who attempts to do so will face broken heads and bloodshed in front of the iron Great Wall of the 1.4 billion Chinese people,” Xi said.
Xi’s comments come as China is enmeshed in a deepening rivalry with the United States for global power status and has clashed with India along their disputed border. China also claims unpopulated islands held by Japan and almost the entire South China Sea, and it threatens to invade Taiwan, with which the U.S. has boosted relations and military sales. Beijing also faces criticism that it is guilty of abusing its power at home, including detaining more than 1 million Uyghurs and and other Muslim minorities for political reeducation in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, and for imprisoning or intimidating into silence those it sees as potential opponents from Tibet to Hong Kong.
Thursday’s events are the climax of weeks of ceremonies and displays praising the role of the Communist Party in bringing vast improvements in quality of life at home and restoring China’s economic, political and military influence abroad. Those improvements coupled with harshly repressing opponents have helped the party hold power despite its 92 million members accounting for just over 6% of China’s population.
While the progress dates mainly from economic reforms enacted by Deng Xiaoping four decades ago, the celebrations spotlight the role of Xi, who has established himself as China’s most powerful leader since Mao. Xi mentioned the contributions of past leaders in his address, but his claims to have attained breakthroughs in poverty alleviation and economic progress while raising China’s global profile and standing up to the West were front and center.
Xi, 68, has eliminated limits on his time in office and is expected to begin a third five-year term as party leader next year.
In seeking to capture more gains for the party on the world stage, Xi is setting up China for a protracted struggle with the U.S., said Robert Sutter of George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs. “In foreign affairs it involves growth of wealth and power, with China unencumbered as it pursues its very self-centered policy goals at the expense of others and of the prevailing world order,” Sutter said.
– The Daily Mail-China Daily News exchange item
