China's 100-Year-Old Communist Party Has More Members Than Most Countries Have People
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: China's ruling Communist Party celebrates its centenary all this month. And it marks a milestone for one of the biggest political parties in the world, more than 95 million members. NPR China affairs correspondent John Ruwitch takes a look at how this party became so huge and what China's leader is doing about it. JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: The party traces its roots back to a small, secretive meeting in Shanghai that started on July 23, 1921. There were just 15 people in the room. TONY SAICH: They were all intellectu...