A tour guide competition was held in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late May. This was not some fun contest. According to Chinese state media, it was a carefully conceived effort to “attract and cultivate a group of politically firm and professionally skilled storytellers of heroes and martyrs in the new era”.
It symbolises the ambitious and far-reaching campaign launched by the Chinese state to revive the country’s pantheon of national heroes and martyrs. The aim is to unite and mobilise the nation in what Chinese leadership see as the crucial final phase in the quest to become a modern global superpower.
On the same day as the Wuhan competition, but 750 miles further inland in Sichuan province, children from a kindergarten gathered with martyrs’ family members to engage in traditional crafts. The official newspaper of the Chinese Communist party, the People’s Daily, explained how this activity helped “pass on the torch of heroes” to young generations.
And two weeks earlier, in China’s eastern province of Shandong, representatives from the official state news agency, Xinhua, attended an immersive training session on hero spirit. By coming “face to face” with heroes of the past, the trainees were able to grasp the “spirit” that had guided the extraordinary deeds of these ordinary people.
This “facing up” to past heroes increasingly takes place through digital means. Thanks to developments in AI, and with the help of universities, museums and various government units, numerous Chinese people have now been “reunited” or become “acquainted” with family members martyred decades ago.
Activities such as these have become commonplace in recent years. They are encouraged, guided and overseen by an expanding architecture of laws and regulations. There are at least two reasons why the campaign to build a new “spirit” of heroism and sacrifice requires attention beyond China-watchers.
Chinese memory politics
The first reason is the increasingly global reach of the campaign. Just as China’s economic statecraft is affecting global trade and finance, so too are Chinese memory politics spreading across the globe and reshaping the transnational memory landscape.
Beijing has become an active sponsor of commemorations that are concerned more with shaping the future than looking into the past. Recent examples include Victory Day celebrations in Moscow and Minsk, and joint commemorations in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, of the Chinese “martyrs” of Nato’s bombing of the Chinese embassy there in 1999.
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China is also fostering bilateral memory partnerships in south-east Asia and Africa. And it has even resorted to memory diplomacy in seeking improved relations with the US by invoking the spirit of Sino-US cooperation during the second world war.
China’s historical statecraft operates globally in the legal realm, too. Laws have come into effect that aim to promote patriotism and spread “core socialist values” among Chinese communities worldwide.
Chinese embassies and consulates are required to locate Chinese martyrs buried in their host jurisdictions, and erect and maintain memorials for them. They are also expected to organise commemorations involving local Chinese diasporic and expat communities.
Recent laws have been used to detain Chinese citizens living abroad. One example is Chinese artist Gao Zhen. Gao had been a permanent US resident for 13 years when he was detained in China in 2024 for his critical depictions of Mao Zedong a decade earlier.
Gao was charged with the crime of “slandering China’s heroes and martyrs” under a law that did not exist when he created and exhibited his artwork.
The second reason why China’s martyrs and heroes campaign matters globally is possibly more disturbing. China has become an example of a growing body of cases where state actors seek to shape and control historical memory.
With several democracies beginning to show signs of democratic backsliding, the Chinese case is one of many that show that polar distinctions between “liberal” and “illiberal” systems are untenable.
Perhaps the most obvious example of a democracy in democratic recession is the US. Donald Trump, a constitutionally elected president, is relying on a series of executive orders to consolidate power and hamper critical debate.
One such directive, issued late in Trump’s first term, entails a proposal to build a so-called “national garden of American heroes”. The proposal was revived recently with an executive order on “restoring truth and sanity to American history”.
The order aims to remove what the administration deems divisive and anti-American ideologies from national museums and public monuments.
Washington’s efforts to control how history is presented seem to come straight out of Beijing’s playbook. In 2020, during his July 4 address, Trump claimed: “Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.”
These words eerily resemble those used previously by Chinese president Xi Jinping to justify his campaign against what he calls “historical nihilism” – attempts to “destroy” the Chinese nation by eradicating its history.
Memory laws have also been adopted across Europe. The European Parliament, for example, has codified its own historical interpretations of the causes of the second world war in an attempt to counter what it labels Russian disinformation.
The causes and consequences of war have always been and will continue to be hotly debated among historians, and there is no need for the EU’s bureaucracy to unilaterally “resolve” these debates.
A problem with these bureaucratic efforts to codify historical interpretation is that they feed memory wars and fuel escalation. Even more damaging is that they emulate authoritarian practices of “dictating” history and restricting debate.
These examples show that distinctions between authoritarian and democratic regimes are not as pristine as is often claimed. Increasingly, global memory practices are evolving and possibly converging on a fluid spectrum between these two poles.
China’s new hero cult is an important case for shedding light on these dynamics.
Vincent K.L. Chang receives research funding from the Dutch government.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
