'Red channel' stirs new debate in China

The satellite TV channel based in Chongqing has dedicated its prime time to programmes featuring the Communist Party of China's revolutionary past when most other televisions channels focus on entertainment. The programmes were being aired at the behest of a local party unit.

"In a controversial move that is generating heated debate, a satellite television channel based in Chongqing is dedicating its prime time slots to programmes featuring red culture, as part of an official campaign meant to remind people of the revolutionary past of the CPC," state-run Global Times reported today.

Mao, who established the People's Republic of China in 1949, kept China on a path of communist ideology for almost three decades, but under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping the CPC initiated sweeping economic reforms, effectively abandoning the party founder's ideology.

The telecast of the new programmes whipping up revolutionary nostalgia of Mao era started on Monday. "It is the first such broadcast decision in the country, where most stations have embraced entertainment programming during prime time," the daily said.

Chen Xiushen, director of the editors-in-chief office at the station, said the Chongqing Municipal Broadcasting and Television Station is striving to build China's first "red" satellite channel - one that honours the CPC and highlights the legitimacy of socialism.

The idea to launch the red channel was inspired by local party chief Bo Xilai, who advocated that the station build a 'red culture' brand to counter the entertainment culture being promoted by most of the TV channels, he said.

According to Chen, the programmes feature the "singing of revolutionary songs and reading of classics" in the morning, and showing classic films and documentaries from the afternoon until midnight.

Chongqing is the fourth big city after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. The "red theme" refers to "positive, healthy" content, in the form of songs, speeches and films that praise the CPC and were written after the May Fourth Movement of 1919.

That includes those remembering and hailing the Red Army, the war against Japanese aggression and the re-form and opening-up policy, according to the Chongqing publicity department.

While the news of the new TV programmes were carried by official media networks, which are the only sources of the media in the country, it is not known how the central leadership of the party viewed it.

Mao though still admired and loved after his death in 1976, much of his hardline ideological dogmas were abandoned by the CPC which was subsequently led by the moderate Deng.

Deng reoriented the party's ideology to open up for economic reforms in the name of 'Socialism with Chinese characteristics'. Subsequently, some of Mao's mass movements like the Cultural Revolution during which thousands were killed in purges were denounced as "calamity" by official historians.

In this background the return of "red culture" is a disquieting thought for some in modern China which opened up its economy in the 1980s and now has a huge property owning middle classes and a vibrant private sector.