Communist Party centenary: Xi warns foreign powers will ‘have their heads cracked and bleeding’
- Xi says China has ‘never bullied, oppressed nor enslaved the people of other countries’ and will not allow others to do that to China
- President perceived as sending a warning shot to the West as well as a signal to the people of China to prepare for the worst
Touting the party’s success in surviving and thriving since its founding 100 years ago, the Chinese leader, dressed in a Mao-style jacket, declared that the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has entered an irreversible historical course”.
For observers at home and abroad Xi’s hour-long speech, the culmination of days of elaborate celebrations, came at a tense moment in Beijing’s deeply troubled relations with the United States and its allies.
In a thinly veiled message to US-led efforts to target China with an international coalition, Xi said any attempts to challenge the party’s absolute leadership or separate the party from the people were doomed to fail.
“The Chinese people have never bullied, oppressed nor enslaved the people of other countries. They had never done that in the past, will not do that now and will not do so in the future … Anyone who would attempt to do so will have their heads cracked and bleeding against the great wall of steel built from the flesh and blood of 1.4 billion Chinese people,” he said, drawing applause from some 70,000 people gathered at Tiananmen Square.
“On the new journey, we must enhance our awareness of danger and stay vigilant in peacetime,” Xi said.
Xi delivered his speech in Chinese. An official translation of the speech in English released hours later made no mention of cracked heads or bleeding.
