Each time it has been tested the CPC has emerged stronger

MONDAY MARKS THE 98TH ANNIVERSARY of the founding of the Communist Party of China. China Daily writer Li Yang comments:

When the Japanese invaders took possession of a large part of China in the 1930s and 1940s, when the US-backed Kuomintang started the civil war to decimate the communists, when the Chinese economy faced extreme challenges in the 1960s, when the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) wrecked havoc on Chinese society, when the Soviet Union collapsed with other socialist states in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, many across the world predicted the demise of the Communist Party of China.

However, it emerged stronger from every crisis. Even the boldest prophet would not have foreseen a small party of not more than 60 members when it was formed in 1921 - when the country was ruled by many warlords with the help of external powers - would turn the national situation and in the process become the world's largest political party.