FOREIGNERS REFLECT ON PARTY'S SUCCESS OVER PAST CENTURY

Before he died in 1994, Hans Muller repeatedly told his wife, "Never leave China."

Fifty-five years earlier, when World War II broke out, Muller, a young German with a medical degree from Switzerland, arrived in Yan'an, Shaanxi province.

He fought side by side with the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), and later in the War of Liberation in the late 1940s. After the founding of New China in 1949, he devoted himself to the country's socialist construction.

Since the CPC was founded in 1921, it has attracted many foreign friends such as Muller during different periods of revolution, construction and reform. Their interactions with Chinese Communists over the past century have opened a window through which the world can better understand the Party.

Today, the CPC is the world's largest political party, with more than 95 million members. Over the past century, it has led the Chinese people to achieve national independence, end a humiliating history of being arbitrarily exploited by foreign powers and transformed China from an impoverished country into the world's second-largest economy, which enjoys all-around moderate prosperity.

The CPC, which celebrates its centenary on Thursday, is leading the world's most populous country toward the goal of the Chinese nation's great rejuvenation.

In 1936, United States journalist Edgar Snow journeyed to northern areas of Shaanxi province to find out what Chinese Communists are like.

In a cave dwelling, Mao Zedong and Snow had many lengthy discussions. Over a period of about four months, Snow also interviewed Peng Dehuai, Xu Haidong and other senior CPC officials and ordinary soldiers, and also experienced life in the Red Army.

In his book Red Star Over China, Snow mentions the tenacity with which the Chinese Communists clung to their principles, as well as the invincible, incredible soldiers led by the CPC and the indestructible energy behind them.

George Hatem, a US doctor known in China as Ma Haide, visited northern Shaanxi with Snow. Moved by the bravery of the Red Army, he decided to stay on at the end of his tour, joining the CPC in 1937－the first Westerner to gain Party membership.

To make a contribution, one must have strong spiritual support, Hatem said late in life.

Over the past 100 years, the CPC has stayed true to its founding aspiration and mission, leading the Chinese nation in a tremendous transformation. It has stood up, become better off and grown in strength. The nation has achieved two feats rarely seen around the world－rapid economic growth and long-term social stability.

According to British political scholar Martin Jacques, the CPC has arguably been the world's most successful political party over the past century.

Lives improved

Corentin Delcroix, a French chef and entrepreneur who has lived in China for 15 years and runs a company in Shanghai, said he thinks the Western stereotype of Communism has stagnated since the Cold War. "A lot of people think Communism itself is just scary, without understanding it at all," he said.

The judgment of a political party ultimately depends on tangible results－under the leadership of the CPC, Chinese citizens' quality of life is improving generation by generation, Delcroix said.

Shunsuke Nakajima, a Japanese national who promoted bilateral exchanges for years and has visited China many times, said, "The Communist Party of China makes every effort to think and act for the future of the country."

Muller joined the CPC in 1957, making an important contribution to the country's efforts to prevent hepatitis. Speaking of her late husband, Kyoko Nakamura, who joined the CPC-led army after Japan's surrender in 1945, said that after so many years in China, Muller felt it was a promising country.

In 1944, Israel Epstein visited Yan'an as a reporter for US media. He interviewed Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and other CPC leaders. Epstein believed he shared a similar－or even the same－world outlook with the CPC, and was convinced that Yan'an represented China's future. He gained Chinese nationality in 1957 and joined the Party in 1964.

Epstein's widow, Huang Huanbi, said: "He supported China because the Communist Party of China is right. What he appreciated most was that the Communist Party is for the poor and helps the people."

Serving the people

In Red Star Over China, Snow detailed how and why the CPC won strong support and trust from farmers, indicating the close bonds between the Party and the people.

Meanwhile, in an article for US media, Epstein wrote that the Eighth Route Army, which was led by the CPC, maintained close ties with the people and never took a needle or a thread from the masses.

Snow once described northern Shaanxi as one of the poorest places in China. It has now shaken off absolute poverty along with other areas thanks to the Party's targeted poverty reduction policy. China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty since reform and opening-up began in the late 1970s.

David Osborn, an Australian sheep breeding expert, has been taking part in China's anti-poverty drive. In recent years, he has visited Huanxian county, Gansu province, several times to promote breeding technologies that can help raise the incomes of villagers, many of whom were in poverty for generations.

"The thought that the CPC has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty is just extraordinary. It is one of the world's great achievements," he said, praising Party members' readiness to help and the CPC's strong executive capability.

By the end of last year, all remaining poverty-stricken counties had shaken off that label.

Hans Muller's son, Dehua Muller, said in Beijing: "The Communist Party of China leads the people, and its members are at the forefront. Nothing is impossible."

Yahia Mustafa, from Sudan, contributed to the Arabic translation of Xi Jinping's report to the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017, noting that key concepts in the report－from "a moderately prosperous society" to "a community with a shared future for humanity"-all involved putting public interests above everything else.

"The distinctive feature of the CPC is that it puts people first and always cares for and serves the people," said Mustafa, who has lived in China for more than 20 years.

The Party's people-oriented philosophy is also evidenced by the nationwide mobilization to contain COVID-19 last year. The CPC asked its members to take the lead by performing the most arduous and dangerous jobs in the battle against the virus.

Jean Christian Nzengue, from Gabon, last year joined a team screening fever patients and offering consultations at a community in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, where he worked closely with many CPC members.

The cardiac specialist said, "It was dangerous, but the Party members did not complain because they love their country and want to protect its people."

According to a white paper issued in June last year, more than 39 million CPC members and cadres fought COVID-19 on the frontline, and nearly 400 died in the process.

Mustafa said China's anti-epidemic fight has clearly taken the solidarity and trust between the people, the Party and the government to a level rarely seen in other parts of the world.

The Party's dedication to the people has boosted public support for the government. A report from Harvard University, based on its 13-year survey in China, showed that the people's overall satisfaction with the central government exceeded 93 percent.

Consulting the people

Epstein and Ma Haide later became members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, taking part in practicing socialist democracy. They made proposals on health, education and other fields. In 2015, China for the first time sought opinions from foreign experts during the drafting of the annual Government Work Report.

Mustafa, who worked for the Sudan News Agency for about 10 years, has gained an independent understanding of China and the CPC after working and living in the nation.

"In the West, the goal of political parties is to gain political power and serve their own interests. For the Communist Party of China, power is a means to serve the people, and all development strategies and plans are centered on serving the people," he said.

Isabel Crook, a Canadian national, and her British husband David Crook studied CPC-led land reform in 1947. They later trained a large number of foreign-language speakers for China.

In 2019, the Chinese government awarded Isabel Crook and five other foreign nationals the Friendship Medal for their great contributions to supporting the country's socialist modernization, promoting exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries, and safeguarding world peace.

Michael Crook, the son of Isabel Crook and chairman of the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, said that what the foreign nationals felt most deeply was that the CPC was good at mobilizing the public, accepting supervision from the masses, and discussing issues with them.

The CPC has pioneered a socialist political system with Chinese characteristics and has continued to improve it to ensure that the people take part in democratic elections, consultations, decision-making, management, and oversight in accordance with the law.

Laurence J. Brahm, a senior international fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, said Chinese democracy, which is different from that in the West, is a system of consensus-building.

Path to cooperation

Over the past 100 years, the CPC has worked diligently for the well-being of the Chinese people and rejuvenation of the nation. In today's world, China's solutions are an important contribution to improving global governance.

Michael Lindsay, a British national, helped the CPC in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression by upgrading radio equipment and building radio stations for the Chinese army in the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1944, he helped launch an English-language broadcasting service for Xinhua News Agency in Yan'an, which meant that news about the Party could be heard across the Pacific.

Today, the voices and visions of the CPC are transmitted more widely across the globe, and have won more positive responses and support.

Jim Lindsay, Michael Lindsay's son, said China plays an important role in world affairs. Other big countries must cooperate with China to solve global problems such as climate change, biodiversity conservation and pandemics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 3.9 million lives worldwide. While making strategic achievements in its own measures to prevent and control the disease, China has provided aid to other countries. It has exported large quantities of medical supplies and helped other nations fight the pandemic, with the country's COVID-19 vaccines becoming global public goods.

Such efforts fit with the CPC's vision of "a community with a shared future for humanity", which has gained wider recognition and support in the global fight against the pandemic.

A total of 140 countries and 32 international organizations have signed cooperation agreements with China on the Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to achieve policy, infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity along and beyond the ancient Silk Road trade routes. The BRI has become the world's largest international cooperation platform and a vital public product.

David Ferguson, a British national, traveled to China in 2006. Now a senior English editor with the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, he was involved in editing the English-language version of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China and several government white papers.

After translating a compilation of President Xi Jinping's discourses on the BRI, Ferguson said he believes the initiative has provided a major channel for the world to strive for globalization, peace and stability, prosperity and development.

Mustafa noted that "a community with a shared future for humanity" is also rooted in traditional Chinese culture. China not only pursues its own development but also deeply integrates itself into the international community and shares its gains with others, he said.

In 2019, the movie Red Star Over China was screened in the nation, and Snow's books remain popular in China and worldwide.

China has come a long way from Snow's depiction in the 1937 book. While leading the people toward the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the CPC is also writing a new chapter on the joint construction of a community with a shared future for humanity.

Xuan Liqi, Cao Yi, Zhao Xu, Zhang Wenjing, Hong Zehua, Miao Xiaojuan, Bai Xu, Song Rui and Fang Anran contributed to this story.