CCP Requests Congratulatory Messages for 100Th Anniversary, Gets None From Western Democracies

CCP Requests Congratulatory Messages for 100Th Anniversary, Gets None From Western Democracies
Chinese leader Xi Jinping appears on a large screen as performers dance during a mass gala marking the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party at the Olympic Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing, China on June 28, 2021. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Frank Yue
7/2/2021
Updated:
7/2/2021

Evidence shows Chinese authorities recently requested foreign political leaders to send messages to congratulate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) upon its 100th anniversary.

The Chinese regime claims the CCP has received more than 1,300 congratulatory messages regarding the anniversary, according to Guo Yezhou, deputy director of the International Department under the Central Committee of the CCP.  Senders include over 150 heads of state leaders and over 200 political party leaders, Guo declared on a June 28 press briefing.

However, Beijing had requested foreign dignitaries to send such goodwill messages to the CCP to save face, Japanese-language Sankei News reported on July 1.

The outlet said the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan received a request from the Chinese side and sent a “telegram” in the name of its secretary-general, Toshihiro Nikai, for the sake of courtesy.

The LDP was not alone in encountering such a request from Beijing. So did the Social Democratic Party and the Constitutional Democratic Party—the leading opposition, Sankei News reported.

Radio France International said Russian leader Vladimir Putin expressed his greetings personally, even though Beijing had highly expected him to do so as a head of state.

The CCP usually pays close attention to the number of congratulatory messages which it received from foreign governments or political parties and is extremely sensitive to criticisms from foreign nations.

So far, the CCP has not received congratulations from leaders from Western democracies, based on media reports.

Moreover, part of the messages are from leaders of a long string of foreign socialist or communist parties, including Gennady Zyuganov, chair of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation; Ahmed Bahaa El-Din Shaaban, secretary-general of the Egyptian Socialist Party; Prachanda, chairman of the Nepalese Communist Party; Fabien Roussel, the National Secretary of the French Communist Party; among others.

However, Akira Koike, the secretary-general of the Japanese Communist Party, did not send any greetings to the CCP. On the contrary, he blamed China for its human rights violations in Hong Kong and its invasion of Japan’s Senkaku Islands, according to a July 1 report of The Sankei News.
One day before the anniversary, on June 30, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio called on the world not to “forget the long history of the CCP’s atrocities and the persistent dark side of its heavy-handed rule” in an article published on Newsweek.

“A century of misery,” Rubio characterized the rise and rule of the CCP in China.

Frank Yue is a Canada-based journalist for The Epoch Times who covers China-related news. He also holds an M.A. in English language and literature from Tianjin Foreign Studies University, China.
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