Chinese Communist Party's sauce for success: Booming economy, ruthlessness, ideological agility 

On July 1, the Chinese Communist Party, which was founded in 1921 and has ruled China since 1949, celebrated its 100th anniversary. 

The CCP monopolises both the state and society in China as the ruling party. 

It has complete control over the military and police, as well as personnel appointments in all of China's political institutions, media, and judiciary. 

The CCP is one of the world's largest political parties, with about 90 million members. 

Xi Jinping, the party's head, has been China's President since 2013. In 2018, a controversial amendment to the country's constitution removed term restrictions, allowing Xi to remain in power indefinitely. 

Chinese Communist Party rule 

Since seizing power after civil war in 1949, the party has had a tumultuous history but President and party leader Xi Jinping is putting emphasis on turning the country into an economic, military and diplomatic super power over the past years. 

To strengthen the current system, Chinese authorities successfully merged Stalinism, Fascism, Neoliberalism, and Confucianism. 

Despite the deaths of tens of millions of people as a result of Mao's Great Leap Forward and the violent upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, which ended only when Mao died in 1976, the Communist Party has kept power for 72 years. 

Deng Xiaoping, who succeeded Mao as China's supreme leader, implemented a more open economic policy that aided growth and development. He also sanctioned the use of force to maintain power, most notably in 1989 in Tiananmen Square. 

China's Economic Rise 

The Communist Party of China has always taken pride on being 'great, glorious and correct'. And the party has reason to brag as it enters its second century. It has not only persisted considerably longer than many of its detractors projected, but it also appears to be on the rise. 

After the Soviet Union fell apart, the Communist regime lifted millions of people out of poverty, restored respect for socialism, and put in motion the rise of Asia's first superpower. 

China's economic success under the CPC's leadership has arguably become a global story of all time, having progressed from a backward agrarian economy in the early days of the People's Republic of China (PRC) to an economic and technical powerhouse today. 

Clampdown on dissent 

China has been suppressing the voices of criticism both at home and abroad. There are numerous examples of CCP brutality throughout history and in the present. 

The Tiananmen Square protests, also known as the Chinese June Fourth Incident, was student-led demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Troops armed with assault rifles and escorted by tanks opened fire on demonstrators and others attempting to prevent the military's advance into Tiananmen Square in what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. 

China has been involved in a series of conflicts. In 1996, Beijing shelled the waters near Taiwan to portray its anger at the island’s first democratic presidential election. However, all it gained was humiliation by its powerlessness. 

In 2013, China built islands in disputed waters in the South China Sea, and soon turned them into military bases, trying to show its power. 

Hong Kong continues to fall deeper into a Beijing-sized hole of communism with the systematic decimation of democratic freedoms in the former British colony. In a year since the National Security Law was imposed, at least 117 people have been taken into custody for trespassing the basic tenets of what is prohibited under the law. 

Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law in June last year that sets out punishment for anything it deems as subversion, secession, colluding with foreign forces and terrorism with up to life in prison, setting the city on a more authoritarian path. 

China has often been accused of widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Up to two million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are believed to have been placed in mass detention centres in the region, according to the US State Department. These people have allegedly been subject to indoctrination and abuse. 

Beijing, however, claims that these centres are voluntary and provide vocational training as part of a de-radicalisation programme in Xinjiang. 

The persecution of Falun Gong is an anti-religious campaign launched by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1999 to eradicate the spiritual practices of Falun Gong in China while upholding a state atheist policy. 

A complex propaganda campaign, as well as a policy of forced ideological conversion and re-education. 

China has never had such global clout, economic might, or military prowess. Xi, however, has been rushing to tighten the clamps on dissent, increase electronic surveillance of his people, impose new restrictions over private industry, and dramatically strengthen his party's prerogatives and power, in stark contrast to his predecessors.