Red Army base a lure for tourists

Interactive courses about Party history and theories account for about half of Jinggangshan's GDP growth

Hundreds of people from around the country visit Jinggangshan, in eastern China's Jiangxi province, each day to retrace the revolutionary generation's footsteps.

They have made walking a section of the city's Red Army trail one of the most popular "red education" courses in Jinggangshan.

Red education, which is related to understanding the history and theories of the Communist Party of China, has become a new economic engine for Jinggangshan, accounting for about half of its GDP growth in recent years.

Jinggangshan, in a remote, hilly location near the border with Hunan province, was an ideal base for the CPC and the Red Army in the 1920s, but its topography and isolation also meant it was an impoverished part of the country.

The city was officially removed from the poverty list in February last year, becoming one of the first taken off it since 2015, when President Xi Jinping set the goal of eradicating poverty by 2020.

On a visit to Jinggangshan before Spring Festival in 2016, Xi said the most valuable wealth left there from the revolutionary period is the spirit of Jinggangshan across time and space.

In recent years, the city has made use of its historical resources - 100 ruins of sites where the revolutionary generation lived and fought - to design various training courses to strengthen the development of the red education industry and raise people's living standards.

Last year, about 460,000 people took training courses in Jinggangshan, a year-on-year increase of about 50 percent. In the first eight months of this year, about 320,000 people took courses.

There are about 200 training agencies in Jinggangshan, providing job opportunities for about 10,000 villagers from 21 townships, including hiring them as receptionists or guides. Last year, the average annual income of about 500 formerly impoverished families grew by 23,000 yuan ($3,305), according to the local government.

Some land and houses left vacant by farmers are being turned into activity centers for tourists.

"The renovation project involves 40 families, and each family is expected to get about 5,000 yuan a year for providing their land or house," said Zhou Haobo, manager of Jinggangshan Pioneer Spirit Training Center, a training agency. "As more tourists visit the place, there will be a better market for their farm products."

The city's Party secretary, Liu Hong, said red education also boosts the development of tourism-related industries, including hotels, catering and souvenirs.

Chen Qiuhui, a university teacher from Jiangsu province who visited Jinggangshan in May, said the teaching activities there are more interactive and experiential than traditional forms of red education like attending lectures.

"When you are dressed in the Army's uniform and present a bunch of flowers to the revolutionary martyrs, the respect in the heart arises spontaneously, which cannot be experienced in classrooms," Chen said.