China’s ‘red tourist’ hotspots popular ahead of Communist Party centenary

Name: Visitors mark Chinese Communist Party centenary with pilgrimage to ‘Red Holy Land’
Uploaded: 2021-05-25T08:21:38.000Z
Duration: 2 min 15 s
Description: Visitors mark Chinese Communist Party centenary with pilgrimage to ‘Red Holy Land’

Places like Xibaipo and Yanan are seeing a large number of visitors, reflecting push to get people involved in anniversary, researchers and officials say

Drive to step up patriotic sentiment aims to ‘increase cohesion’ as the country faces challenges, according to academic

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Reuters

Published: 4:21pm, 25 May 2021Updated: 11:25pm, 25 May 2021

In a square in front of a Communist Party memorial hall at Xibaipo in northern China, row upon row of party members stood, raised their fists and chanted the party oath in unison.

“I will never betray the party,” they called out, facing statues of the People’s Republic of China founder Mao Zedong and other revolutionary leaders before moving on, to be quickly replaced by another group.

Xibaipo was an important Communist Party base during China’s civil war, which ended in 1949 with the victorious communists sweeping to power.

Earlier this month, it was a stop on a four-day government-organised media tour to some of the party’s most important historical sites to mark the 100th anniversary of its founding on July 1.

Thirteen delegates, including Mao, attended the first congress in Shanghai in 1921 to set up the party.

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Visitors mark Chinese Communist Party centenary with pilgrimage to ‘Red Holy Land’

Party researchers and officials said the large number of visitors at Xibaipo reflects a national push to get people, especially party members and cadres, to get involved with the upcoming anniversary.