context: The CPC Central Committee added a new doctrine, Xi Jinping 习近平 Thought on Culture, to its core ideology. The doctrine aims to integrate Chinese culture with Marxism, facilitating socialist spiritual build-up. To promote Chinese culture and revolutionary culture, the NCHA (National Cultural Heritage Administration) underlines the need to advance cultural-tourism fusion. Through building national cultural parks, the Party aims to promote revolutionary spirit and patriotism.
Under the ‘Long March National Cultural Park build-up and protection plan’, 15 provinces (including district and cities) are to utilise cultural artifacts to propagate the official narrative on the CPC’s historical long march, reports People’s Daily.
Fujian has begun cultural park construction
- focus on the theme, ‘launching the march, escaping Soviet regions’
- illustrate how the great march began
- park build-up extends along ‘one axis and two areas’
- one axis: major route of the long march
- two areas
- Changding and Ninghua, places where the march started
- supplemented by areas related to the event
- Changding and Ninghua have completed the following projects
- upgrading tourist infrastructure at the start of the route
- built
- a red culture creative base
- a Ninghua County Long March Spirit Education Base
- a Ninghua Central Red Army Long March Starting Point Core Display Centre
Jiangxi is endowed with 307 unportable cultural relics related to the Long March. The Jiangxi section focuses on
- areas where the Red Army
- planned the march
- carried out early preparations
- major developments include building
- a Central Red Army Long March Memorial
- a Long March academy
- a Long March Walking Path
- 12 key exhibition centres
- nine central display areas
- overall, construction work has been completed, with over 1.5 million tourists visited related sites
Other provinces and cities that have largely finished the first round of construction include
- Henan
- Hubei
- Hunan
- Guangdong
- Guangxi
- Chongqing
- Sichuan
- Guizhou
- Shanxi
- Gansu
Three other areas are still planning Long March National Cultural Park build-up within their region, including Yunnan, Qinghai and Ningxia.