BEIJING, China – President Xi Jinping will lead centenary celebrations for the Chinese Communist Party in Tiananmen Square on Thursday, pulling on history to remind patriots at home and rivals abroad of China’s — and his own — irresistible rise.
At 8 am local time (0000 GMT), above the giant portrait of Mao Zedong which dominates the square, Xi is expected to take to the podium where the famous chairman proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Twenty years earlier, Mao and a clutch of Marxist-Leninist thinkers in Shanghai founded the party which has since morphed into one of the world’s most powerful political organisations.
It now c…
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