CPC leaders reaffirm mission at Party’s birthplace
In July 1921, 13 individuals met and founded the Communist Party of China (CPC) in a brickand-wood building in the French concession area of Shanghai.
Ninety-six years later, the new CPC leadership looked back on the Party’s revolutionary past to seek impetus for future endeavors. On Tuesday morning, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, led the other six members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee to the sites where the first CPC National Congress was held.
Xi said the aim of the tour was to revisit the Party’s past -- especially the history of its founding -- to learn from the predecessors of revolutionary times and their noble spirit.
The tour should also serve to throw light on the responsibility the current leadership now bears, and strengthen their sense of duty to fulfill targets and missions laid down at the 19th CPC National Con- gress, he said.
“Only by remaining true to our original aspiration, keeping our mission firmly in mind, and keeping on striving, could the Party stay young and live,” said Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission. “As long as the Party and all Chinese people unite and work hard, the great ship of national rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will reach its glorious destination,” he said.
The first stop of the Tuesday visit was Shanghai.
In 1921, the delegates representing about 50 CPC members nationwide convened the first CPC National Congress in late July in Shanghai, but moved to a boat on Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing of east China’s Zhejiang Province due to the harassment of local police. The meeting site on Xingye Road has been open to public as a museum since 1952.
Xi visited the place three times when he worked in Shanghai.