China's Communist Party marks its centenary

China’s ruling Communist Party is marking its centenary with fireworks and fanfare.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen leading other top officials pledging their vows to the party on-screen during a gala show ahead of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, China, June 28, 2021.

For China's Communist Party, celebrating its 100th birthday on July 1 is not just about glorifying its past. It's also about cementing its future and that of its leader, Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Chinese communists party cadres attend the opening ceremony of the 19th Party Congress held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Oct. 18, 2017.

Since seizing power amid civil war in 1949, the party has undergone a tumultuous history, but president and party leader Xi Jinping is emphasizing the country’s rise to economic, military and diplomatic power over the past four decades since reforms were enacted.

A column of Chinese Communist light tanks enter the streets of Beijing, formerly known as Peking, which is filled with people watching the conquerors pass, May 2, 1949. In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists lost the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists and retreat from the Chinese mainland to the island of Taiwan.

Commemorations are to continue through Thursday’s anniversary of the party’s founding as an underground political movement in 1921.

A worker takes a porcelain plate bearing an image of Chinese President Xi Jinping for a customer which is on display together with previous leaders Jiang Zemin (L) and Hu Jintao (2L) at a souvenir shop near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, Oct. 27, 2016.

Going unmentioned are the disasters brought under the founder of the Communist state, Mao Zedong, as well as the bloody military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong smiles and waves in 1969.

In the decades since, China has risen to become the world’s second largest economy, has placed a space station into orbit and expanded its economic and political influence throughout Asia and the world as part of what the party calls the country's “great rejuvenation.”

Those who oppose the party’s complete control over political life have been imprisoned or intimidated into silence, while heavy-handed policies have been implemented to quell activism among ethnic minorities in Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.

A guard tower and barbed wire fences are seen around a facility in the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region, Dec. 3, 2018. This is one of a growing number of internment camps in the Xinjiang region, where by some estimates 1 million Muslims are detained, forced to give up their language and their religion and subject to political indoctrination.

Free speech and political opposition in the former British colony of Hong Kong have been reined in, while China is sending growing sorties of fighter jets around Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy it claims as its own territory and threatens to invade.

Protesters stand on a barricade at the occupied area outside government headquarters in Hong Kong, China, Dec. 10, 2014.

A convoy of Chinese-made rocket launcher trucks moves through Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, Oct. 1, 1999.

Portraits of Mao Zedong, chairperson of the Chinese Communist Party, and books of his sayings, are held during a public rally held by the Red Guard in Beijing, China, Sept. 14, 1966.

Monks walk along a sidewalk path lined with Chinese flags as seen during a government-organized visit for foreign journalists at the Tibetan Buddhist College near Lhasa in western China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 31, 2021. High-pressure tactics employed by China's ruling Communist Party appear to be finding success in separating Tibetans from their traditional Buddhist culture and the influence of the Dalai Lama.

A Chinese paramilitary officer stands guard in the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, Nov. 7, 2012.

Crowds holding posters of China's Communist Party leader Mao Zedong fill the street of a city in China, celebrating the triumph of the Communist revolution in 1949.

Members of the combined Chinese Armed Forces color guard raise the Chinese flag at the Hong Kong convention center marking the moment Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule, Hong Kong, China, June 30, 1997.

Young workers gather outside a factory waving copies of the collected writings of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, often referred to as Mao's Little Red Book, Jan. 23, 1967.

Civilians with rocks stand on a military armored vehicle near Chang'an Boulevard in Beijing as violence escalated between pro-democracy protesters and Chinese troops, leaving hundreds dead overnight, Beijing, China, June 4, 1989.

Tens of thousands of Taiwan supporters rally to denounce China in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 25, 2008. Taiwan's Ma and China's Xi were the first leaders from the two sides to meet since their territories split during the Chinese civil war in 1949. Ma was the successor to Chiang Kai-shek, whose Nationalists retreated to the island, while Xi now leads Mao Zedong's victorious Communists, who set up government in Beijing.

Female machinists work in a precision valve factory in Wuzhong, China, Sept. 9, 1985. Mao made improvements of women's issues a major goal, but despite improvements women still face difficulties at all levels.

Chinese troops and tanks gather in Beijing, one day after the military crackdown that ended a seven-week pro-democracy demonstration on Tiananmen Square, June 5, 1989. Hundreds were killed in the early morning hours of June 4.

Chinese communist party leader Mao Zedong (L) and U.S. President Richard Nixon shake hands as they meet in Beijing, China, Feb. 21, 1972.