Xi Jinping seeks to channel Chinese Communist Party’s revolutionary past as he tells members to prepare for tough days ahead
- The Chinese leader used a tour of Guangxi region to visit an important revolutionary battle site and tell cadres to remember past struggles
- The party will celebrate its centenary later this year and Xi told party members to remember key moments in its history such as the Long March
President Xi Jinping wrapped up his visit to Guangxi in southern China by evoking Communist Party history and urging the party’s rank-and-file to uphold the revolutionary spirit of the past when preparing for tough days ahead.
According to state media reports, Xi spent his first day of the tour visiting a memorial park dedicated to the Battle of Xiangjiang in 1934 clash, where the Red Army suffered heavy casualties breaking through an encirclement by Nationalist troops.
Hailing the battle as “an important historical event that determined the life or death of the Chinese revolution”, Xi said the secret of success was revolutionary ideals that “soar above the clouds”, according to state news agency Xinhua.
“[The Red Army] persevered in the most difficult times, so as to continuously achieve miraculous victories. We should have such belief in achieving the goals of the second hundred years and turning our national rejuvenation into reality,” Xi said. “In the face of even greater difficulty, think about the Long March and the Battle of Xiangjiang.”
Almost immediately after Xi’s visit to the memorial park, Xinhua published a commentary on the battle, which is said it showed that the Communist Party’s governance of the country was “hard-earned” and built on “solid foundations”.
