TURNING 90 years old yesterday, China’s Communist Party marked the event with propaganda songs, Chairman Mao-themed events and strong words from President Hu Jintao, who said the economy must keep expanding and social stability must be maintained to keep the Communist Party’s grip on power intact.
Coverage of events on state broadcaster CCTV was frenetic, showing people gathering in parks to sing “red songs”, basically propaganda ditties to raise the ideological pulse, and to gather in halls around the country and clap frantically to mark the anniversary.
“Without stability, nothing can be accomplished, and the achievements that we have made will be lost. All of the party’s comrade’s must take this message to heart, and they must also lead all the people to take this to heart.”
The CCTV footage was straight out of central casting from the movies of the Cold War period, and in many ways the anniversary celebrations sit uneasily with the modern vision of China that the party is trying to present to the world.
The anniversary comes against a backdrop of arrests and detentions of dissidents, human rights lawyers and long-time protesters, following calls online for Arab-style “Jasmine protests” in China.
Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo languishes in jail, while controversial artist Ai Weiwei and HIV-Aids campaigner Hu Jia have recently been set free under what appear to be strict conditions.
The party is enormously popular in China. Last year the number of party members swelled to 80.27 million, an increase of more than two million from 2009.
“Development is of paramount importance and stability is the paramount task,” Mr Hu told an audience of senior party faithful in the Great Hall of the People.
Next year is a big year for the party. Mr Hu will hand over the reins as president to vice-president Xi Jinping, while premier Wen Jiabao will be replaced by Li Keqiang.
The party is a legendarily secretive body, so all of these succession facts have been gleaned from the order in which the party elite joins the podium during one of the annual parliaments.
The movie is doing less than spectacularly well at the box office, but the fact that so many companies are funding their employees to go and watch the film is keeping ticket sales relatively buoyant.