Gathering of global communist leaders honors birth of Karl Marx 200 years ago

The Communist Party of China is willing to strengthen dialogue, deepen exchanges and cooperate with world political parties and political organizations, President Xi Jinping said in a congratulatory letter to a symposium on Monday.

The CPC is poised to work with them to contribute wisdom and strength to creating a community with a shared future for mankind and a better world, Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said in the letter sent to the Party symposium held in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

The symposium, which was hosted by the CPC and involved more than 100 leaders and representatives of 75 communist parties from 50 countries, honors the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx.

In the letter, Xi said Marxism is one of the great creations of human history and the CPC has made a series of theoretical innovations and brought socialism with Chinese characteristics to a new era.

Robert Griffiths, general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, said that Marxism is gaining popularity there and in other Western countries because of some lingering social problems and the impact of the financial crisis that began in 2008.

People are looking for alternative explanations for how and why those problems happen, with some going back to the classic works of Marx, said Griffiths, who participated the forum.

Griffiths said he was pleased that the CPC, as the world's largest communist party, has widened exchanges and conducted more dialogues with other communist parties in recent years.

"The CPC has broadened that dialogue further to include other political parties. We take it as a positive development," Griffiths said, adding that through the dialogues, political parties exchange their opinions and develop mutual respect.

Marxism is meant to be applied to real-life circumstances, and the theory must be developed further. "We are seeing that in China," he said.

Founded in 1920, the Communist Party of Britain started rebuilding itself in 1988 and has grown again with new members, Griffiths said.

Communist Party USA National Chairman John Bachtell said that the CPC's proposal of building a community with a shared future for mankind seems to be a new level of peaceful coexistence of different systems, and could be a healthier and more globally democratic foreign policy.

It will also have an impact on the idea that global cooperation is possible on important issues like climate change, poverty, disease and development, he said.

Communist Party USA sent its first official delegation in a decade to China to the symposium, although academic exchanges have been undertaken regularly.

Such a trip helps build the relationship between the two parties more closely, and enables the two sides to better understand each other, Bachtell said, adding that his party will try to do it more often.

Xinhua contributed to this story.