The site, now a memorial for the historic moment, is currently under renovation and will be reopened in the run-up to the centenary of the CPC, the largest political party in the world with over 91 million members, in July.

 

"The CPC was founded when China was still beset by warlords and the plundering of Western powers... and Marxism was burgeoning among young aspirants with ambitions to save the country from an abyss of tremendous chaos," said Jin Chongji, a leading expert on CPC history study.

 

Since the founding of the CPC, China has undergone great changes.

 

 

 

ABSOLUTE POVERTY ERADICATION IN MOST POPULOUS NATION

 

It is near noon. Jiang Youwen, 53, feeds his chickens and rides his motorcycle to the bamboo grove in Guanjiang Village, Liuzhou City, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

 

"It's not yet the season for bamboo shoots, but I need to cut down some old shoots to make room for the new ones, or their quality will slip," said Jiang while shuttling through the bamboo forests.

 

Jiang, like most of his fellow villagers, used to live in absolute poverty. Generation by generation, their attempts to improve their lives were frustrated by the rolling hills. Even a walk across the village would require trudging along a 2-km mountainous road.

 

Jiang has eight siblings, making the family the biggest in the village. "But starvation is still the most profound memory of my childhood," he recalled.

 

"Our staple food was a small amount of rice mixed with cassava and sweet potato flour, and we only had two meals a day," he said. "The only luxury lied in a creek, where we caught small fish and shrimp in summer."

 

Poverty has troubled China for thousands of years. The CPC's doctrine is to enable the people to live a better life.

 

The life of Jiang's family began to improve after the Party started a reform and opening-up policy and launched rural reforms in 1978 to boost productivity and help hundreds of millions of people shake off poverty.

 

Over the past 40-plus years of reform and opening-up, more than 700 million people in China have been lifted out of poverty -- more than 70 percent of the global reduction in poverty.

 

The poverty reduction went into a new phase when a "targeted policy" was introduced in 2013, which demands local authorities to tailor relief measures to local conditions -- a guiding principle in China's move to eradicate absolute poverty.

 

Party officials were dispatched to villages to drive the anti-poverty campaign. Funds were allocated, industries developed and relocations carried out on an unprecedented scale.

 

It never occurred to Jiang that the common local snack Luosifen, a rice noodle that is known for its pungent smell derived from pickled bamboo shoots, could generate a decent living for his family.

 

In 2015, an industrial conference on Luosifen was held by the local government to boost its mechanized packaging and market recognition.

 

The Luosifen instant noodle soon became a market buzz and its annual sales value exceeded 10.5 billion yuan (about 1.6 billion U.S. dollars) last year.

 

The noodles were also exported to over 20 overseas markets, created more than 250,000 jobs and have driven the development of upstream and downstream industrial chains in areas of agriculture, food processing and e-commerce, among others.

 

"The price of bamboo shoots used to be just a few cents per kg, now the price has appreciated several times over. We can make 15,000 yuan a year merely by selling bamboo shoots," said Jiang, adding that they had not only shaken off poverty but have also built a two-story house and bought a car.

 

Similar success stories have been repeated among millions of poor families nationwide, even those living in extremely harsh environments.

 

Under the leadership of the CPC, all of China's nearly 100 million impoverished rural residents living below the current poverty line shook off poverty after eight years' efforts. All 832 poor counties have now been lifted out of poverty.

 

Feeding one-fifth of the world's population and letting them live a well-off life is just one of the miracles the CPC has achieved in the past 70 plus years since it began to govern the country.