Visitors at the site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Shanghai on July 19 (WAN QUAN)

When delegates of the first National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), at the average age of 28, announced the founding of the CPC, a radiant virtual sun rose above a replica of a red boat, and the well-known The Internationale rang out. At the Nanhu Revolutionary Memorial Hall in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, the scene of that historic meeting is vividly reproduced and presented to visitors. 

On July 23, 1921, the First CPC National Congress was held in a building located at No. 76, Xingye Road in Shanghai. On July 30, interrupted by police, the meeting was halted and delegates moved to a red boat floating on Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing, where the meeting was finally concluded.

Leandro Compagnucci, a senior diplomat of the Argentinean Embassy in China, visited the site of the First CPC National Congress in Shanghai and the Nanhu Revolutionary Memorial Hall in Jiaxing on July 19. “In the memorial halls, I learned about the history of the CPC, a party that has always been working for the wellbeing of the Chinese people,” he told Beijing Review.

Visitors at the Nanhu Revolutionary Memorial Hall in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, on July 19 (WAN QUAN) 

Gao Anming, Vice President and Editor in Chief of China International Publishing Group, said that by visiting the sites, visitors can get deeper understanding of the tough exploration and struggles of the CPC during its revolutionary period and find the answer to how and why the CPC works in China.

Compagnucci said that the CPC has transformed the once subordinated and peripheral country into a major economic power that puts all its efforts at the service of its people. “This way, the CPC has managed to lift 850 million people out of extreme poverty since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, fulfilling the goals set by the United Nations 10 years earlier,” he said.

The CPC remains faithful to the people. It is a party that puts the interests of the Chinese people at the core of its strategies, according to Compagnucci. He added that the 1.4 billion Chinese people are the only ones who have the right to judge the Chinese system and the prosperity that they are enjoying, as well as whether the Party and the Central Government are functioning effectively or not.

Visitors take photos by the Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, on July 19 (WAN QUAN)

China is a shock for almost everyone who comes in from the West, Robert Walker, a professor with Beijing Normal University, told Beijing Review after visiting the two sites. It’s never what they expected, but turns out to be a dynamic country. It has moved from a country that nobody really noticed to a country that is in a position of potential global leadership, he added.

“The vast majority of people that I’ve spoken to believe that the government and the Party are working in the interests of the people and they are interpreting the aspirations of the people,” Walker said. There were merely some 50 Party members during the early days. Now, the CPC, with over 95 million members, “is governing and supporting a nation, which has found itself a leading one in the world,” he said.

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

Comments to mamm@bjreview.com