Patriotic tune gets Children’s Day makeover, racks up millions of hits

As the world marked International Children’s Day on Monday, the mainland celebrated by unveiling a music video featuring a boy band singing a decades-old patriotic anthem and racked up millions of views.

The Communist Youth League of China, which runs the Young Pioneers of China, released We are the Heirs of Communism, by the band TFBOYS and singer Han Geng, on its official Weibo account.

The new version of the song has drawn a huge audience on social media. The video garnered more than 5 million views and had been shared nearly 200,000 times by Tuesday morning.

The 12-minute video also features People’s Liberation Army General Chi Haotian, chief designer of China’s Chang’e-3 lunar lander Sun Zezhou, basketball star Yao Ming and other familiar faces from state broadcaster CCTV’s children’s programmes.

The video, shot in Beijing, Chongqing and South Korea, took only a few weeks to produce after a decision was made to go ahead early last month, a project planner told the Beijing Youth Daily.

Wu Dezu, director of new media at the youth league’s Central Committee, said the celebrities featured in the video were inspiring models for young people, the Daily reported.