Special report | The Chinese Communist Party at 100
The push to revamp the Chinese Communist Party for the next 100 years
The world’s most powerful political party was founded a century ago. James Miles says it is projecting ever greater confidence, while fortifying itself against collapse
CHINA IN JULY 1921 was a poor country, racked by civil war. Most of its 400m people lived in the countryside. A famine had swept the north, killing hundreds of thousands. But foreigners in Shanghai led a charmed existence, living in self-governing enclaves of about 30 square kilometres. Their troops and police—turbaned Sikhs for the British and pith-helmeted Vietnamese for the French—kept order. The real China was far away.
This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline “In the beginning”
From the June 26th 2021 edition
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