President Xi Jinping made a high-profile visit to the birthplace of China’s Communist Party in Shanghai on Tuesday alongside his colleagues from the new Politburo Standing Committee.
The symbolic visit echoed the call Xi made at the recently concluded 19th national congress for the party to stay true to its founding mission.
And so China’s seven most powerful men flew by private jet from Beijing to the memorial site where the party held its first national congress more than 96 years ago, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The grey brick building in the tree-lined former French Concession was where Mao Zedong and 12 other delegates met in secret in July 1921. At that time they were representing 57 members of China’s fledging Communist Party, which is now the world’s biggest political group with almost 90 million members, or more than the entire population of Germany.
In the same building on Tuesday, the Standing Committee members took the oath, swearing allegiance to the party and all of its decisions.
A video clip from the state broadcaster showed the six men standing in a row behind Xi, the “core” of the party leadership, facing a hammer and sickle as they repeated Xi’s words.
“It is my will to join the Chinese Communist Party … carry out the party’s decisions, strictly observe party discipline, guard party secrets, be loyal to the party … be ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the party and the people, and never betray the party,” they said.
Tuesday’s trip was Xi’s first outside the capital since he began his second term as the most powerful leader Communist China has seen since Mao.
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The state broadcaster also showed Xi strolling outside the historic site with his black-suited entourage. In the background a huge hoarding carried a poster with the words: “Raise high the flag of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era. Stay true to the original aspiration and keep the mission firmly in mind”.
