The violence at the heart of the CCP

The violence at the heart of the CCP

Shortly after he secured his third term in power in October 2022, Xi Jinping took the top members of his Politburo to the north-western Chinese city of Yan’an – perhaps the closest thing that Chinese communism has to a sacred site. It was where, during China’s two-decade civil war, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ultimately came to rest after the famous Long March of 1934-35; the city became the heart of the party, and the focal point of its l…