With the backing of a mostly rural population, in 1949, the CCP succeeded in routing the nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, who retreated to the island of Taiwan.
On October 1 of that year, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in Beijing.
Once in power, Mao attempted to speed up China’s industrial development with bold but sometimes disastrous policies, which included the Great Leap Forward of 1958 – a campaign of agricultural collectivisation that resulted in an estimated 30 million people starving to death.
Mao thrust the country into chaos once again in 1966, when he launched the Cultural Revolution and unleashed the fanatical Red Guards to destroy all vestiges of China’s “feudal culture”. Historians believe as many as two million people may have lost their lives in the anarchy that engulfed the country.
When Mao died in 1976, the CCP’s new leaders embarked on a series of political and economic reforms, including opening up the country to international trade and investment. In the five decades since, the CCP has overseen breakneck economic growth that has lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty and transformed China into a major global power.
At 100 years old this year, the CCP is one of the few communist parties to have maintained power into the 21st century. Under President Xi Jinping – China’s most powerful leader since Mao – the party has further embedded itself across Chinese society and ruthlessly silenced dissent, including in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Many analysts say CCP is at the peak of its power on its centenary, but the party faces a new host of challenges, both at home and abroad.
They include economic inequality, environmental degradation, and tensions with the United States and other developed nations over trade, politics and human rights.
Read More at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/30/interactive
Comments