China stirs up patriotism by sending tourists to Mao’s old haunts

Bloomberg

Dressed in a red guard uniform, Gao Hongli and a group of fellow kindergarten principals are laughing and whooping like they’re on a Marxist hen night.
They’ve travelled to Jinggang Mountain in Jiangxi province as part of a 100-strong delegation of preschool heads to learn how members of the Communist Party’s first rural “soviet base” lived in the late 1920s.
“It feels deeply emotional to be here,” Gao said. “We’re going to take the red spirit we’ve learned here back to each of our kindergartens.”
As China prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic on Tuesday, the party has been exploiting its history to reinforce ideology — especially to those in positions of influence. Behind the holiday spirit is President Xi Jinping’s campaign to bring the party, and the country, in line — a campaign that also includes feared anti-corruption measures and endless political inspections.
The party is encouraging this patriotic nostalgia to bolster support in an economic slowdown and to cement backing for Xi as he combats months of civil unrest in Hong Kong and external challenges from a more assertive US under President Donald Trump.
“Efforts under the Xi administration to revive and amplify communist orthodoxy are directly tied to the CCP’s concern over its political legitimacy and regime stability,” said Jude Blanchette, author of “China’s New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong.”
“Xi fears that if the Chinese people aren’t consistently reminded of the great and glorious achievements of the CCP, they will treat it with indifference or worse, hostility.”
To push this vision, the government earmarked $370 million to develop red tourism between 2016 and 2020, turning it into big business.