What China’s Communist Party Centenary Means for India

In a marked moment of political triumph for communism, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is on the verge of celebrating one hundred years of formation in July 2021. Founded by a handful of revolutionaries in 1921, the CCP’s long journey has been subject to critical and intense political debate, chaos, and authoritarian trajectory aimed at taking China ahead. The contemporary nationalistic fervor attached to the forthcoming celebration arrives when the geopolitical climate is exceedingly tense and not favoring China.

According to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Boao Forum speech, the CCP’s centennial anniversary is a commemoration of how the Party “has striven forward against all odds in a relentless pursuit of happiness for the Chinese people, rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and the common good for the world.” It signifies the year when the Party achieves its goal of a “moderately prosperous society” in a new era of Chinese domestic and foreign policy, as it begins to work towards its second goal of becoming a “great modern socialist country” in 2049. This has major implications for leading democracies across the world, and especially for China’s Asian rival power, India. What does the CCP’s one-hundredth anniversary, and the changes in Beijing’s international outlook post the centennial, mean for New Delhi?

Beijing’s highly controversial political arrests under the new Hong Kong National Security Law, its doubling down on repressive Xinjiang policies, its explicit threats to Taiwan, maritime adventurism in the South and East China Seas, wolf warrior diplomacy vis-à-vis Australia, and territorial expansionist tendencies with India have become hallmarks of the CCP’s nationalist global posturing. For too long, Western and non-Chinese analysts were convinced that China’s rise would be accompanied by political transparency and deeper integration with the global system leading to a move away from its unilateral revisionist tendencies. However, under Xi Jinping, now effectively president for life, the CCP has promoted an overtly aggressive and unambiguously expansionist approach. Under Xi, China has employed its economic might via the Belt and Road…