Pacific Islands find lessons in China's Long March legacy

The Long March offers lessons in unity and perseverance and insight into China's development today, representatives from Pacific Island countries said after touring the Museum of the Communist Party of China in Beijing on Thursday.

Abraham Sanehi, a staff member of the Secretariat of the Parliament of Fiji, said solidarity had given the Chinese people the resilience to resist enemies and advance together, offering an example other countries could learn from.

This year marks the CPC's 105th anniversary and the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Long March.

The Long March began in 1934 as the Central Red Army withdrew from its revolutionary base in Jiangxi under pressure from Kuomintang encirclement campaigns. Troops fought their way through enemy blockades and crossed snow-covered mountains and treacherous marshlands.

After the battle along the Xiangjiang River in late 1934, the Central Red Army's ranks had fallen from more than 86,000 at the outset of the march to just over 30,000.

The Long March concluded in October 1936 with the reunion of the Red Army's main forces in Northwest China, preserving the revolutionary forces and providing a new base from which to advance the Chinese revolution.

For Sanehi, the videos and artifacts in the exhibition brought the suffering and sacrifice into focus. What struck him was the determination to continue despite those losses.

"They never stop. They continue fighting for their land," he said.

For Morris Tovebae, national general secretary of Papua New Guinea's PANGU Pati, the museum, which opened to the public in July 2021 during the CPC's centenary, brought the Party's history and China's transformation together in a way he had not experienced on previous visits.

"I can see, I can know China just in one spot," he said, describing the tour as an extraordinary firsthand experience.

China's technological progress also impressed Matai Kaltabang, a member of Vanuatu's Parliament representing the Iauko Group. He said the visit reinforced his view that China had "come very far".

"Everywhere you go, you can see many new technologies," he said.

Former Vanuatu prime minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau described the Long March as "a tremendous journey" and said understanding that history helped put China's achievements into perspective.

"One can only have a better appreciation of where China is today," he said after visiting the museum and seeing the journey undertaken by China and the CPC.

Toward the end of the tour, the delegation viewed the return capsule of the Shenzhou XVII crewed spacecraft.

"It's just amazing," Kalsakau said. 

He was also moved by Chinese leaders' commitment to serving the people and their sense of responsibility toward them.

Kalsakau linked the collective effort depicted in the museum to the challenges facing Pacific Island countries, particularly climate change. He saw opportunities to draw on China's experience in tackling poverty and strengthening resilience.

"We need to put our heads together," he said, to explore ways of building a better future for their countries.

Countries should learn from one another rather than regard one another as competitors, he said, and work to "build a future that we can all live in as people of the Earth".

Ji Yuxuan contributed to the story.