Smarting from the failures of his Great Leap Forward campaign, which hit the economy hard, Mao launched the 1962 war with India to rally the nation behind him.
It's not clear which side of LAC Miram Taron was on when he was ‘kidnapped’. Different perceptions of the border in India & China and competing maps make this tricky ground.
Like the car, nothing the party has done to reinvent itself has worked. Only way forward is to offer something looking towards the future, not in image of glorious past.