China's space agency just gave the Communist Party a big 100th birthday gift:

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China's space agency just gave the Communist Party a big 100th birthday gift: a rover on Mars

Hong Kong (CNN)China's space agency has an extraordinary gift for the ruling Communist Party's 100th birthday: a rover on Mars.

The historic landing on Saturday of Zhurong, a rover named after the god of fire in ancient Chinese folklore, was a crowning moment for China. It not only demonstrated the country's growing capabilities in space, but also served as a timely reminder of how far the country has come since its founding.

During the 1919 May Fourth movement that paved the way for the birth of the Party two years later, patriotic Chinese students and intellectuals rallied for science and democracy to save the weak and divided country from the hands of Western powers.

A century on and China is veering further from democracy under its authoritarian leader Xi Jinping -- but its scientific prowess is making tremendous strides, and fast rivaling that of the West.

And China's ambitious space program is perhaps the most eye-catching example of that.

China only launched its first satellite half a century ago. Already, it is the second country in the world to have a rover on the red planet, after only the United States.

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