Red memories in green mountains

Well before the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC) had set up many strategic revolutionary bases in its battle against first the Kuomintang (KMT) as early as the 1920s and later the Japanese invaders during the World War II. These bases, nowadays referred to as the old revolutionary bases, mostly lie in the nation's vast and remote rural areas. With poor access to transportation, they were extremely difficult for the KMT or Japanese troops to penetrate, spoiling and hampering enemy attacks and creating space for the CPC to develop a legacy of red memories that inspired a nation.

Nonetheless, after the founding of the PRC, these old revolutionary bases lagged behind other regions in terms of economic development, especially following the nation's process of reform and opening up that took off in 1978.

In their bid to reverse the state of underdevelopment across these revolutionary cores, governments at all levels have invested a great deal of manpower and material resources in the improvement of transportation access, industrial support, education, and medical facilities. In addition to these, taking a tour of the bases, or the red tourism, has become a gradually flourishing approach to swap the poverty and underdevelopment of the old revolutionary bases for some epic red nostalgia found only in these regions.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the CPC. Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the old revolutionary bases are now gearing up to receive an expected major tourist influx.

To the Chinese people, the old revolutionary bases are the cradle of the PRC and reflect the close relationship between the CPC and the people.

Without these old revolutionary bases from the past, there would be no today's PRC.

For the world at large, the nation's old revolutionary bases serve as an important window for the international community to better understand China. Furthermore, they set an example for all to strive for national independence and pursue peace and development. In this very notion lies the answer to the question of how one nation once humiliated by foreign invasion and colonization liberated itself and grew stronger.