TibetanReview.net, Jan 23
The authorities in Tibet Autonomous Region are to promote “red tourism” by restoring former residences and office buildings of some of the first Chinese Communist Party members to be sent to Tibet in the early 1950s to turn them into “revolutionary” tourist attractions. “The government has worked out a list of the revolutionary sites which need restoring and the second list is soon to be submitted,” the official Xinhua news agency Jan 5 quoted a regional CPC Committee official as saying.
The sites on the first list were reported to include the “General’s Building”, the temporary residence of Zhang Guohua, the army commander of the No.18 Troop of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). It was built in Bomi County, in Nyingchi Prefecture, as the military marched on Lhasa in 1951, the report said. The headquarters of the No. 18 Troop, the first PLA regiment to enter Tibet, is also on the list. So also the former office building of Zhang Jingwu, the only deputy to the central government in Tibet from the liberation in 1951 to 1965 when the Tibet Autonomous Region was established, the report said. It is located in Lhasa and was opened to the public in Sep 2006. The first village party branch, opened in Kesong village, Nedong county in Dec 1959, and put on show to tourists in May last year, is also to be restored.
“By visiting the buildings, people can experience the hard times that their forefathers had to pull through and the sacrifices they made so that we can be inspired to treasure the peace and prosperity we have today,” the report quoted the unnamed official as saying.
Within China, the main red tourism attractions include the Jinggang Mountain in eastern Jiangxi Province, known as the cradle of the Chinese revolution, and Shaoshan village, Chairman Mao’s birthplace, in central Hunan Province.