عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
World

Xi Stresses Loyalty as Chinese Communist Party Prepares for 100th Anniversary

A giant screen broadcasts live footage of Chinese President Xi during the July 1 Medal awarding ceremony for outstanding Party members at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, China June 29, 2021. (Reuters)
A giant screen broadcasts live footage of Chinese President Xi during the July 1 Medal awarding ceremony for outstanding Party members at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, China June 29, 2021. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Xi Stresses Loyalty as Chinese Communist Party Prepares for 100th Anniversary

A giant screen broadcasts live footage of Chinese President Xi during the July 1 Medal awarding ceremony for outstanding Party members at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, China June 29, 2021. (Reuters)
A giant screen broadcasts live footage of Chinese President Xi during the July 1 Medal awarding ceremony for outstanding Party members at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, China June 29, 2021. (Reuters)

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday urged Chinese Communist Party members to remain loyal and continue to serve the people as he awarded a new medal of honor to 29 members as part of the ruling party's 100th anniversary celebrations this week.

The medal award ceremony took place in Beijing's Great Hall of the People with much fanfare and was broadcast live on national television, as the party prepares to mark its 100th birthday on Thursday.

The "July 1 medal", announced in 2017 and given out for the first time on Tuesday, is part of Xi's efforts to shore up the image of one of the world's most powerful political parties.

He urged all members to "firmly keep the loyalty and love for the party and the people close to one's heart, turn that into action, dedicate everything, even your precious life, to the party and the people".

Honored for "outstanding contributions" to the party, the medal recipients included soldiers, community workers and professionals in the arts and science.

The Chinese Communist Party had 91.9 million members in 2019, or 6.6% of China's population, and has ruled the country since 1949.

As part of the anniversary-week celebrations, the party also staged a gala performance on Monday night in the National Stadium, or "Bird's Nest" as it is commonly called.

Party leaders and foreign diplomats watched the extravaganza of song, dance and theater which credited the party with guiding China's rise into a great power over the past century.

Darker parts in the party's history, including a famine in the late 1950s, the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, were omitted from the show.

The show culminated with the audience singing the song "Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China," and five minutes of fireworks.

Many Chinese cheered the celebration by posting online well-wishes for the country and party on social media.

Some comments were less cheery.

"Only when housing price falls, can the people start to feel happiness," read one comment, which received 39 "likes".

Most Viewed

 
 
World

Mayotte Faces Environment, Biodiversity Crisis after Cyclone

This photograph shows a truck unloading a garbage in a waste disposal site in the city of Tsountsou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
This photograph shows a truck unloading a garbage in a waste disposal site in the city of Tsountsou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
TT
TT

Mayotte Faces Environment, Biodiversity Crisis after Cyclone

This photograph shows a truck unloading a garbage in a waste disposal site in the city of Tsountsou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
This photograph shows a truck unloading a garbage in a waste disposal site in the city of Tsountsou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on December 26, 2024. (AFP)

Mayotte has changed beyond recognition since a cyclone devastated the Indian Ocean territory, sparking an environment and biodiversity crisis that could last for a decade or more, scientists say.

After barreling into the archipelago at 200 kilometers per hour (125 mph), Cyclone Chido left behind scenes of desolation: Trees mowed down as far as the eye can see, sturdy tree trunks blown apart as if struck by mortars, the previous green of the foliage replaced by a sad brown.

"It's an environmental disaster," said Raima Fadul, a biologist. "There are no more trees. Those still standing have lost their tops... The cyclone flattened the vegetation."

A gigantic baobab over 300 years old collapsed onto a restaurant. Part of the mangrove is now completely bare and black. A three-meter (10-feet) earth mound looms where an acacia tree, half a century old, was uprooted by the violent storm.

One effect of the vegetation's sudden disappearance is that Mayotte's slums, formerly hidden by lush greenery, are now starkly apparent, making visible their number, and their sprawl.

- 'We never realized' -

"All we saw before were mango trees, coconut trees and a forest," said Rouchdat Mourchidi, an education counselor checking on what remains of a family plot on the island's heights. "We never realized there were metal shacks there because they were hidden in vegetation."

Trees have always played the crucial role of channeling rain and slowing down potential floods. Now that they are gone, any torrential downpour will wash soil into the lagoon below, covering the seabed in mud.

As a result, part of the lagoon's coral reef will be killed off, said Fadul, leading to the loss of some of the 300 species of fish, corals, vertebrates and mollusks present in the reef's ecosystem.

On land, wildlife is already suffering from the loss of forest cover. Small dark lemurs called makis are now being spotted increasingly in urban areas where they come in search of food, and where they will probably die.

Bats, pollinators with an important role to play in future reforestation, are also becoming rarer after losing their nesting spots in trees.

There are also grave concerns for lizards, insects and flowering plants that used to proliferate on Mayotte.

- 'In 10 years' time' -

One ray of hope is that Mayotte's tropical climate will help accelerate future tree growth, said Benoit Loussier, regional director of the National Forestry Office.

"In 10 years' time, plantations may have restored a forest cover" of eight meters (26 feet) high, he said.

But this can happen only if the population resists the obvious temptation to convert destroyed forest zones into farmland.

This illegal activity was already in evidence before the cyclone, notably due to desperately poor illegal immigrants practicing subsistence farming.

In 2020, the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated that 6.7 percent of Mayotte's woodland had been cleared between 2011 and 2016, a deforestation proportion comparable to that seen in Argentina or Indonesia.

The risk of illicit replanting is all the more acute as crops were also destroyed by Cyclone Chido.

Another looming risk is "subsistence poaching" of turtles, warned Lamya Essemlali at Sea Shepherd, a wildlife preservation NGO, as Mayotte's poorest go hungry while food aid is still slow to arrive.

Officially Mayotte has 320,000 inhabitants -- with unregistered undocumented migrants probably adding another 100,000 -- packed into a territory of 374 square kilometers (144 square miles), resulting in a population density eight times that of mainland France.

The median income in Mayotte is 260 euros ($271) a month, according to the national statistics institute Insee, six times less than in mainland France.