All armed force officers and soldiers in China’s military will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in their combat positions, instead of holding the yearly military parade where army hardware is put on display.

This unexpected arrangement was announced by Major General Li Jun, assistant to the director of the Central Military Commission’s Political Work Department, during a Tuesday press briefing in Beijing which kick-started the year-round anniversary celebrations.

Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Army will embark on a massive loyalty campaign to the country’s ruling Communist Party and its leader, President Xi Jinping. Since Xi took over as the party’s general secretary in late 2012, he has eradicated his political foes in the name of a series of anti-graft campaigns, pushing the notion throughout the country that the “the party leads everything.”

Since Xi assumed the post as Chinese President, the party has organized seven military parades. In 2017 and 2019, when he attended the 20-year anniversaries of the handovers of Hong Kong and Macao, he reviewed the army garrisons stationed at the Shigang Military Camp and the Macao New Port Military Camp.

The military must “resolutely listen to Chairperson Xi’s command, be accountable to Chairperson Xi [and] let Chairperson Xi rest assured,” Major General Li said during the press briefing.

Every soldier will learn to be “loyal to the core, uphold the core, follow the core,” he said, referring to the increasingly centralized party leadership helmed by Xi.

The authorities will hold a series of theoretical seminars and symposiums — involving organizations such as the Central Propaganda Department, the party’s Central Party School and the Central Policy Research Office — as part of the celebrations, said Wang Xiaohui, executive deputy head of the party central committee’s Propaganda Department.

As of December 2019, the number of party members stood at 91.914 million, an increase of 1.32 million from the end of 2018, making the Chinese Communist Party “the largest Marxist ruling party in the world,” he added.

Veteran China watcher Johnny Lau believes that the decision to not hold a military parade has mainly revealed the country’s increasingly severe economic issues following the global COVID-19 pandemic.

While the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ruled for 74 years before the coalition fell apart in 1991, and Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party was defeated in the 2000 elections after 71 years in power, the Chinese Communist Party is one of the longest-running single-party regimes in modern history.

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