Messages of Beijing’s ‘invincibility’ have been spread far and wide as party approaches its 100th birthday
In the summer of 1921, 13 young men severely disillusioned by China’s post-imperial development gathered in Shanghai to form a communist party. On 23 July, they convened in Shanghai’s French Concession and held the first “national congress”.
None of them would have thought that in 30 years’ time the organisation they had founded would rule the nation, or that in 100 years’ time it would be the world’s largest political party, with nearly 92 million members – today also an enigma to many outsiders.
