How nationalism is shaping China’s young

YAN’AN, A MINING town of 2m people in Shaanxi province, is not the stuff of tourism brochures. Yet 50m Chinese come here on China’s “red tourism” trail every year. The area’s historical sites are among a hundred or so that have been spruced up to celebrate the communist past. Yan’an was the wartime stronghold of the communists under Mao Zedong from 1937 until shortly before they seized power in 1949. In those years, many youths streamed to Yan’an to join Mao’s cause. Today, they flock in still.