On July 1, Beijing's Great Hall of the People played host to a meticulously choreographed spectacle: the 105th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.
Red banners hung perfectly straight, military brass played on cue, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke of a "community with a shared future for humanity.” The official message was unmistakable: the world is finally coming to understand the "key code" behind the CCP's success, even as Western democracies sink into political decay.
It is a narrative the party loves to tell itself, particularly when speaking to the outside world. Look at our numbers, it says. Look at our contribution to global growth. Look at our high-speed railways, our gleaming megacities, and our historic poverty alleviation campaign.
China's economic transformation over the past four decades has indeed been remarkable. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of extreme poverty, and the country's modernization has reshaped the global economy.
However, the supposed "key code" behind China's success is not some magical institutional superiority. It is a system built upon a near-total monopoly over political power and information, where the “choice of the people" is loudly proclaimed precisely because the people are never actually permitted to choose.
Step outside the heavy doors of the Great Hall, and the reality of contemporary China feels very different from the triumphant prose of official celebrations.
‘Unstoppable momentum’
In recent years, the dominant mood among many young Chinese has not been one of confidence in an "unstoppable momentum," but of quiet exhaustion. Speak to recent graduates in Shanghai or Shenzhen, and you are unlikely to hear celebrations about "shattering the myth of Westernization."
Instead, you are more likely to hear about "lying flat" and "letting it rot" — phrases that emerged organically from Chinese society itself, reflecting frustration, disillusionment, and a sense that relentless effort no longer guarantees a better future. Youth unemployment, an unforgiving job market, and the notorious "996" work culture — working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — have left many questioning the promises of endless progress.
The party takes immense pride in governing a nation of 1.4 billion people, arguing that such a vast population makes China's governance challenges uniquely complex. That is undoubtedly true. Yet official narratives often omit how much of that complexity is managed.
It is managed not solely through party theory, but through the world's most sophisticated digital surveillance apparatus. Real-name registration governs everything from purchasing train tickets to posting comments online.
Online criticism is routinely censored, sensitive topics disappear from social media, and lawyers, journalists, dissidents, labor activists, and corporate critics who cross invisible political lines often find themselves silenced. In such an environment, social stability should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of universal consensus.
Top-down model
Official discourse frequently portrays Western electoral parties as loose, short-sighted, and vulnerable to special interests, while celebrating the CCP's rigorous organization and capacity for self-reform. Yet this reveals a fundamental weakness in Beijing's top-down model.
In a system where power is increasingly concentrated at the top, where independent institutions are absent, and where Xi Jinping Thought is elevated to near-canonical status, genuine self-correction becomes increasingly difficult.
When there are no independent courts, no free press, and no opposition parties to serve as mirrors, policy mistakes often remain insulated from public scrutiny. Errors may be acknowledged only belatedly, after high social and economic costs have already accumulated.
If China enjoyed a genuinely free press, the party's anniversary might prompt a very different national conversation. Commentators would ask not only how much China has achieved, but also what those achievements have cost.
They would debate whether the party's monopoly on power contributed to tragedies such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution; whether anti-corruption campaigns have strengthened governance or merely further concentrated authority; whether pervasive censorship and surveillance are truly necessary in a society said to overwhelmingly support its rulers; and what ordinary Chinese have sacrificed in exchange for stability and prosperity.
The absence of such debate does not demonstrate national consensus. It merely underscores the narrow boundaries within which public discussion is permitted.
Impossible costs
China's prolonged zero-COVID policy offers a recent example. For years, local governments competed to demonstrate political loyalty through ever-stricter lockdowns, mass testing, and intrusive monitoring. The policy undoubtedly saved lives in its early stages, yet its prolonged implementation imposed enormous economic and psychological costs on society.
When the policy was abruptly abandoned in late 2022, it was not because an independent media or opposition movement had compelled a course correction, but because the costs had become impossible to ignore.
The same questions now surround China's property crisis and looming demographic decline — long-term structural challenges that many analysts warned about years ago, yet which remained politically difficult to address.
Official narratives often portray China as a beacon of hope for the Global South, offering modernization without political liberalization, and frequently invoke Western thinkers when doing so, seeking validation from the very intellectual traditions they often criticize.
However, a model built upon pervasive control also carries inherent limitations. High-speed railways and skyscrapers can be built through state mobilization and debt. Confidence, creativity, and trust are harder to command.
The party may well celebrate 105 years of survival. It has proved itself remarkably resilient, adaptable, and, when necessary, ruthless. Yet we should not mistake a monopoly on power for a monopoly on legitimacy, nor confuse political control with a mandate of the soul.
The tragedy of modern China is not that its people lack talent, resilience, or ambition. Quite the opposite.
The Chinese people are extraordinarily resourceful and industrious. The tragedy is that their achievements are so often subsumed into a political narrative that claims all successes as the party's triumph while assigning the costs and sacrifices to ordinary citizens.
As the banners are folded away in the Great Hall and the propaganda apparatus turns to its next campaign, the real question is not whether the CCP can survive another decade.
The more profound question is how long a country of 1.4 billion people can sustain the fiction that their lives are illuminated by "brilliant light," when so many increasingly experience life in the shadow of an ideological fortress.
John Cheng is a retired businessman from Hong Kong who lives in Taiwan and is the author of “Taiwan Is Taiwan.”
