Spectacular show "Great Journey" to celebrate centenary of CPC held on Monday photo:Li Hao/GT

International media, especially Western media, cast their focus on China's nationwide celebration of the centennial of the Communist Party of China (CPC). It is a special occasion for China to reflect on its past miseries as well as it hard-won achievements. While the West is propelled to acknowledge China's success, it still traces the course of China and the CPC over the past century with a lens of prejudice. Many US media carried reports of Pew Research which claimed that China is falling behind the US in global esteem. And some took the opportunity to play the same old trick again by criticizing the human rights and freedom of speech in China, claiming that China is a police state and drifting apart from the world.  

Western elites have far from enough, if any, will to truly understand China and the CPC, but judge them only from the perspective of Western civilization. China's comprehensive rise over the decades led by the CPC has made the West uneasy and unable to adapt to it. The West has begun to feel a deep sense of loss and been haunted by the fear that it will be outpaced by an unfamiliar civilization sooner or later. After all, Western civilization has been in the dominant position in the past few hundred years. 

The West is aware that it cannot use military to stop China's rise. Nonetheless, the West has resorted to other approaches, such as decoupling and launching a new cold war to suppress China's development rights. After all, it lives with the past fantasy of reshaping China into what it wants - a country subject to the Western civilization so it can be bullied at will. 

But that's exactly where the West is wrong. It underestimates the CPC's resilience, its ability to renew itself and deliver, and the massive support it has gained from the Chinese people. The era of China being bullied has gone under the rule of the CPC with these features.

"Chinese people will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us," said Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee at Thursday's ceremony marking the centenary of the CPC.

Zuo Xiying, a research fellow at the National Academy of Development and Strategy of Renmin University of China, told the Global Times that the remark is a response to the West's hostile stance toward China and sends a signal to the world that no matter in terms of will or strength, the West cannot bully China as it did before. 

Zuo noted that the West still holds the illusion that it retains the world's hegemony and is the rules-maker of the law of the jungle. 

"The West is returning to geopolitical rivalry and pushing the world into chaos. The bullying of China is over, but the West still manipulates smaller countries by practicing the law of the jungle. At this juncture, China's rise is to change the Western dominance and China's role in safeguarding, maintaining and constructing rules and order based on fairness and justice is particularly important," said Zuo.

The celebration of the CPC's centennial will be a watershed moment for the West to reflect on the way it views the CPC and China and considers the role it should play on the world stage. The choice is in the hands of the West whether it serves a progressive role or hindrance to fairness and justice in the world.