When it comes to powerful authoritarian political parties, none are quite a big as the now 100 year old Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and as the celebrations took place in Beijing on Thursday, China’s President Xi Jinping was pulling no punches as he warned foreign powers that attempting to bully or influence his country, they will “get their heads bashed”.
According to the official history books, the CCP was founded in a small room in Shanghai’s then French controlled district with only 13 people in attendance. Like with western culture, the number 13 is considered unlucky, but on this occasion, those officially recognized 13 founding members would burgeon into more than 95 million members today, almost 7% of the Chinese population.
So, how did a small gathering in a house in 1921 turn into the second largest economy in the world and one that is predicted to overtake the US economy in the next ten years? Here we are going to take a look at 10 pivotal moments that created and shaped this communist behemoth.
