When a handful of delegates proclaimed the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in a twostory brick dwelling in Shanghai’s French conces- sion nine decades ago, the Party had about 50 members nationwide. That small band of like-minded men has since grown to become a driving force for change in China.
Today, the CPC, with a membership of more than 80 million—larger than the total population of France—takes the reins of the world’s second largest economy.
After the CPC’s founding, the Chinese“embarked on the bright road of striving for independence and liberation,” President Hu Jintao said at a conference on July 1 commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Party’s founding.
“What has happened shows that in the great cause of China’s social development and progress since modern times, history and the people have chosen the CPC, Marxism, the socialist road, and the reform and opening-up policy,” said Hu, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.
The Chinese people turned to the CPC for leadership after suffering repeated setbacks in their quest for national renewal, analysts said. Hu’s speech not only underlined the critical role the CPC has played in China over the past decades, but also charted the course for the Party’s development as well as China’s economic, political, cultural and social programs in the years to come. History
China’s adoption of the CPC-led socialist system was not a coincidence, but based on the Chinese people’s long-term struggle for national rejuvenation following the outbreak of the Opium War in 1840, said Wu Yin, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
The Opium War (1840-42), fought between the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) empire and British colonists marked the beginning of China’s modern era when the country was mired in a series of social crises because of foreign aggression coupled with political turmoil. Ensuing wars, such as the Second Opium War (1856-60), the Sino-French War(1884-85) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), heightened the risk China would be carved up by colonists.
While resisting foreign invasion, the Chinese people began to explore a way to lift the nation out of the devastating crises, Wu said in an interview with People.com.cn.
For instance, in 1898, reformists introduced wide-ranging reforms with the support of the emperor. The short-lived campaign, known as the Hundred Days’ Reform, ended in a coup by powerful conservative opponents.
The failure of the Hundred Days’Reform awakened the Chinese people to the fact that they must seek the overthrow of the monarchy through a revolution, Wu said.
The bourgeoisie-led Revolution of 1911 brought the Qing Dynasty, China’s last feudal empire, to an end. But it did not result in the establishment of a Westernstyle republic in China. Following the

revolution, warlords seized state power, plunging China into a period of military rule. Armed conflict persisted as warlords competed for dominance.
On the diplomatic front, at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 following the defeat of Germany in World War I, Western powers decided to transfer Germany’s concessions in Shandong Province to Japan rather than returning sovereignty to China.
Outrage over this decision caused massive student demonstrations in China, giving rise to the anti-imperialist and antifeudal May Fourth Movement. Li Dazhao(1889-1927) and Chen Duxiu (1879-1942), professors with Peking University, played a pivotal role in the movement. They were among the first to introduce Marxism to China and would later become two of the CPC’s leading founders.
“When it was founded, the CPC represented the interests of the Chinese nation on the international stage with a pledge to fight foreign aggression,” Wu said. “Domestically, it also aimed to serve the interests of the people and lead them in efforts to end their miseries of being oppressed and exploited.”
The Chinese people identified with the CPC’s positions and actions, and were willing to follow its leadership, she said.
Breakthroughs
In his speech, Hu summarized the CPC’s achievements in the past nine decades as“three earthshaking events”—breakthroughs that enabled the Chinese people to bid farewell to national humiliation since the Opium War and led to profound social transitions in the country, said Gao Xinmin, a professor with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.
First, the CPC “completed the new democratic revolution, winning national independence and liberation of the people,”Hu said. The CPC-led new democratic revolution culminated in the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, after
28 years of fighting, including wars against Japanese aggressors and the Kuomintang regime.
Second, shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic, the CPC “completed the socialist revolution and established the basic socialist system,” Hu said. This was done largely by changing private ownership in different sectors of the economy into public ownership.
Third, the CPC “carried out a great new revolution of reform and opening up, creating, upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Hu said. The reform and opening-up program was initiated in the late 1970s to boost China’s modernization drive by unleashing market forces and open the country to the rest of the world.
China’s economic miracle in recent decades is widely acknowledged. The country’s GDP skyrocketed from 364.5 billion yuan ($56.35 billion at current exchange rates) in 1978 to 39.8 trillion yuan ($6.15 trillion) in 2010, its total imports and exports soared from $20.6 billion in 1978 to $2.97 trillion in 2010, and products made in China can now be found almost everywhere, from stylish stores in New York to bustling bazaars in Islamabad.
Even by UN standards, China’s rise
has been meteoric. It has fulfilled several of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) ahead of schedule. China is the first developing country to achieve the MDG poverty reduction target of halving the proportion of people whose income is less than$1 a day between 1990 and 2015. It also met the MDG target of universal primary education in advance, as the net primary school enrollment rate in China had reached 99.4 percent by the end of 2009.
These achievements explained why the CPC has remained in power, said Huang Weiding, a scholar on CPC studies and former associate editor in chief of the Red Flag Press. The Party has been able to do so be-

cause it won people’s support while leading them in establishing the People’s Republic of China, he said. Moreover, since it came to power in 1949, it has continued to keep up with the times and has always represented the people’s fundamental interests.
Over the past nine decades, the CPC has attached great importance to theoretical innovation, said Xin Xiangyang, a CASS research fellow. Before Marxism was introduced to China, the Chinese people did not have an advanced theoretical system to look at the outside world, he said.
As the CPC applies Marxism in the country in an innovative way, the Chinese have gained a clearer understanding of the development of China and the world at large, Xin said. With this understanding, the Party has formulated and implemented policies for the people’s benefit.
The CPC has made two major theoretical achievements by adapting Marxism to China’s conditions, Hu said. One is the Mao Zedong Thought—strategies and principles on the CPC-led new democratic revolution as well as socialist revolution and construction.
The other theoretical achievement is the “system of theories of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” This system includes the Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of the Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development. These theories have been developed since China adopted the reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s.
For instance, the Scientific Outlook on Development, advocated by President Hu, calls for comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development. The CPC put forward this concept to address problems in the wake of China’s explosive growth in recent decades, such as resources depletion, environmental degradation and a widening wealth gap.
As part of its efforts to promote development in a more sustainable way, the CPC has called on local governments to focus on environmental protection and further
improvements in residents’ living standards, rather than seeking growth at all costs. It has also seen to it that China’s social safety net, including medical insurance, unemployment insurance and old-age pensions, continues to expand and improve.
Challenges
A large part of Hu’s speech was devoted to clarifying the CPC’s policies on boosting progress of the nation, and in this regard, it gave prominence to the reform and openingup policy, said Lin Shangli, Vice President of the Fudan University based in Shanghai. In keeping with this policy, China will promote economic, social, cultural and political development in an all-round way.
“On the way forward, we must firmly carry out the central task of economic development and stay committed to pursuing scientific development,” Hu said.
Moreover, China will continue to promote the development of socialist democracy, facilitate the development and enrichment of socialist culture and improve people’s well-being.
Hu’s remarks showed the CPC has a comprehensive plan for China’s economic and social development. This makes people confident about the country’s future, Lin said.
At the same time, the CPC is fully aware of the daunting challenges it faces today, when the nation is undergoing a major social transition and addressing difficult issues, including social tensions, as its reform and opening up deepen.
How the Party copes with difficulties to
accomplish development goals is essential to China’s future development, Lin said. In this sense, Party building—efforts to develop and improve the CPC itself—is of paramount importance.
The CPC faces challenges in governing the country, in implementing reform and opening up and in developing the market economy, as well as in the external environment, Hu said.

“And the whole Party is confronted with growing danger of lacking in drive, incompetence, divorce from the people, lacking in initiative, and corruption,” he said.
In a bid to improve itself, the CPC will emphasize the development of human resources—from leading officials to intellectuals and innovators, which it considers a strategic asset, Lin said. Moreover, it will continue to optimize the institutions through which it exercises state power.
“China, under the leadership of the CPC, is a people’s democracy where the people are the masters of the country,”Lin said. “Power comes from the people, and the people have entrusted the Party with providing leadership for society. The Party’s mission is to serve the people, create happy lives for them and work for the realization of national rejuvenation.”
Since the people are a decisive force in China’s social and national development, the CPC must put people first by representing and upholding their interests.
The CPC has long pursued a populist approach that underlines close ties with the people. It must adhere to this approach as it serves as the ruling party of the world’s most populous nation, Lin said.
The exercise of political power always entails risks for the ruling party, such as corruption, he said. While the Party has put in place an anti-corruption system, other institutions, including the economic system, the social governance system and the system of democracy, are also at stake. But this should not be an excuse to tolerate corruption.
Although it is unrealistic to expect the Party to root out the problem in a short time, Hu’s speech reaffirmed the CPC’s determination to combat corruption, he said.