The Chinese Communist Party is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding this week, but the long history of its atrocities and "heavy-handed rule" should not be forgotten, Sen. Marco Rubio writes in an opinion piece. 

The CCP will say or do anything to expand its power," the Florida Republican said in his article for Newsweek, written as the party celebrates its centennial on Thursday. "Nothing is off limits, and nothing is sacred. This has been clear from the very beginning, and yet all these years later, the world still struggles to grasp its implications."

The "evil nature" of the CCP dates to its origins, and it rose to power through deception. By 1924, the party entered an alliance with the Chinese Nationalist Party government, which was in charge at the time, but then "quickly betrayed" that party and dragged China into a 15-year civil war.

By the 1930s, the CCP then conspired with invaders from Japan to take down the Chinese government, notes Rubio. It then pretended to join with the Chinese government for a united front against the Japanese but exploited that to sell intelligence to Tokyo. 

The CCP's rise to power, continued through the Second World War, after which it betrayed China's Nationalist government again before mounting a "nationwide campaign of destruction," including in 1948, when it prevented civilians from leaving Changchun, resulting in 160,000 people starving to death, he continued. 

Finally, once the CCP took charge of China, it attacked anyone with ties to the former government, and at least 5 million civilians were killed during the CCP's first 10 years in charge. 

But the "worst was yet to come, said Rubio. 

CCP Chairman Mao Zedong, in 1958, initiated the "Great Leap Forward," which Rubio labeled as a "harebrained plan to rapidly industrialize the Chinese economy."

At that time, Mao brought millions of laborers into work communes, and after the economy was collectivized, China suffered the worst famine in history, and at least 45 million people died "with starvation so widespread that many resorted to cannibalism," Rubio continued. 

The CCP also incarcerated at least 8 million to 9 million people into gulags during the famine, and at least 3 million of them died of starvation and disease. 

The party has also pushed to destroy ethnic culture, with genocide in Xinjiang continuing to this day. 

Mao, after the famine ended in 1962, kept in power for more than a decade through his "Cultural Revolution, during which victims accused of disloyalty to the party were harshly punished in the nation's streets, and 2 million people were eventually killed, wrote Rubio. 

"Victims were forced to stand in the burning sun, or sometimes kneel on broken glass," he said. "People were mutilated, branded with hot irons, doused in gasoline and immolated, and buried alive. The mobs forced husband to turn against wife, brother against sister and parent against child."

He acknowledged that there are some who say the CCP should be judged more on its modern history, and say that China's economic growth should make up for Mao's crimes, but still, the Chinese live under the threat of political violence, including the massacre of protesters in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 

The CCP's "reform effort" has also resulted in the destruction of a free Hong Kong and even outside China's borders, the party is "working tirelessly to destroy the democratic international order," said Rubio. 

"This is the Chinese Communist Party," said Rubio. "This is who it has been for 100 years, and it is who it will be for the next 100 if we fail to stand up to its tyranny. But if we rise to the occasion, the Chinese Communist Party will surely meet its just end in time, and July 1 will then be observed as a day of mourning in a free, democratic China."

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