The battle for China's history

Approved history: members of the Xiangyang Commune in Jiangsu Province take part in a campaign during the Cultural Revolution in 1974. Photo by Bettmann In November 2012, two weeks after taking over as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping took his top officials to the National Museum of China, a vast Stalinist edifice on the eastern edge of Tiananmen Square. The new general secretary led the group through the "Road to Rejuvenation" exhibition, where they studied the approved version of history, detailing the country's supposed salvation from the ruins of empire under the party's wise stewardship….