East Asia Journal | Henan, China | July 2025
Nanjie Village - China's Last Maoist Redoubt
Futuristic cities, neon lights and advertisements. China has come a long way from its brutal Maoist past. Although his ‘Chinese Communist Party’ still governs China as a one-party state to this day, many argue China operates as a capitalist country. The Chinese Government has significant control over the market, yet McDonald’s, Starbucks and other western brands can be found all over the country, and the private sector is booming. This came to be after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, which in turn has led to China becoming the world’s second largest economy. Rapid urban and technological development has transformed the face of China to something unrecognisable today compared to 40 years ago, yet amidst all this, an orthodox communist ideological stronghold exists within rural Henan Province where Mao remains the eternal leader. This small industrial village on the edge of Linying County is Nanjie Village.
Nanjie Village is a collective village, where land and resources are owned collectively with funds going to welfare and production, something not unique in China with over 10,000 still operating as such. Nanjie differs however, as the cult of personality of Mao Zedong never left, and residents still celebrate him. The head of the village, Wang Hongbin, has been leader since 1977 and resisted much of the reforms in the 1980’s, instead re-collectivising and running the village under the Nanjie Village Group.
Throughout the week, patriotic and Maoist songs and dances are preformed in the main square, sometimes as early as 6am.
The economy of the village is entirely the conglomerate Nanjie Village Group. The village produces various food and products within its factories, including instant noodles, soy sauce, halal food, beer and packaging which are shipped all over China. It was in 1986 when all Nanjie’s agriculture and industry was re-collectivised. The 3,000 people who live and work within the village receive 30% of their wages, whilst the remains go into public services. Residents do not pay for their apartments, utilities, healthcare, weddings, food schooling, retirement or childcare. Although all residents own shares in the group, average income is around $30-40 per month, far below China’s average.
The apartment blocks within the small residential district of the village. Unlike the rest of China, cars do not fill the streets, and Nanjie roads are almost empty.
The soy sauce factory in the centre of Nanjie village.
One of the most striking aspects of the village is the cult of personality around Chairman Mao. Although still present on the Chinese Yuan banknotes and various statues around the country, his idolisation mostly died down after his death in 1976. Nanjie remains the last place in China where his face can be seen on virtually every street, and his quotations plasters on almost all buildings. Many of the older residents have great nostalgia for what many describe as ‘revolutionary times’ during Mao’s brutal leadership. Standing in ‘East is Red Square’ in the centre of Nanjie, Mao waves his arm down the central boulevard, visible from the gates of the village, surrounded by portraits of Marx, Engles, Lenin, and most surprisingly Stalin.
The front of the condiments factory, near ‘East is Red square’.
‘East is Red square’ where the totalitarian Soviet leader Stalin is still celebrated, despite killing millions of his own people.
The streets of Nanjie are noticeably cleaner than the rest of China, although as a whole China is much cleaner country than many countries in the west. Once through the gates of Nanjie however, not just the buildings and streets change but the culture too as if travelling to an entirely different time. Spitting, shoving and hopping queues seem to disappear within this little red outpost.
Nanjie is one of the most colourful places within China, with decorations and propaganda posters adorning most streets and buildings. Nanjie has been described as a Chinese version of the Truman Show, it is evident that the group that runs the collective are keen to portray their village as a ‘socialist utopia’ just as Mao had put down, or at the very least a fortress of resistance against the ever-evolving capitalist style Chinese economy driven by private commerce.
The Village today receives part of its revenue from tourism, almost exclusively from within China, Nanjie has become something of a Maoist Mecca mostly attracting elderly people nostalgic of their revolutionary youth, left wing Maoists critical of China’s open market reforms and students studying Marxist theory. Many of those within the village, both residents and visitors, are fearful of capitalist policies and adhere to Maoist principles with religious like belief. Built not far from the main gate from Linying, the tourist office takes Chinese tourists around the factories and districts of the village on electric golf carts, as well as to the Nanjie Sightseeing Garden and botanical gardens. Here tourists can learn about Chairman Mao as well as his teachings and the revolution. Patriotic songs blare out from the speakers around the park. It is often that groups of Chinese Communist Party officials from provinces all over the country come to visit the village, recognisable by their blue and white stripped shirts and CCP pin badges.
The fields around Nanjie, many workers commute in on electric scooters. The garlic is picked and processed by hand before going to the factories. As the Nanjie Village Group grew and more factories opened, the workforce within the village wasn’t enough so the group had to start recruiting from outside. Currently the number of external employees is almost three times the population of the Village, many commute from nearby villages or from Linying, the town next to Nanjie. These workers are paid a larger salary and receive meals but do not get the full benefits residents do.
Grain being offloaded into the villages flour mill.
Workers preforming a dance in the square, and a factory in the village.
The village and the group have attracted their fair share of criticism for various reasons. Guangzhou-based publication ‘Southern Metropolis Daily’ accused the Nanjie village group of propping up its workforce and economy with cheap low paid labourers from outside the village, and for poor working conditions such as 12-hour days. Corporate punishment and mandatory ‘political study classes’ have been used as punishments for both residents and external workers. Other criticisms have been aimed at the group’s funding, claiming its economy has been sustained by large loans and grants from Communist Party officials.
Wang Hongbin, the leader of Nanjie, has been personally criticised for his mismanagement of Nanjie Village group funding. In 2011 he invested tens of millions of Chinese Yuan into a ‘perpetual motion’ machine, something deemed impossible by science, which saw him publicly denounced. The machine never became reality and the project shut down, Wang Hongbin remains the leader of Nanjie however.
In June the village celebrated 104 years of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party with a large dance show along with singing, and patriotic speeches. Wang Hongbin even gave a speech, praising the principles of Marxism and Chairman Mao, and subsequently the village. Although the venue was packed full of happy smiling villagers, it is evident that attendance was mandatory, as groups of workers showed up together still in their blue factory overalls on.
The dances and plays told the story of the Communist Party’s victory over the Nationalist government in the Chinese Civil War, as well as the defeat of the Japanese in the Second World War and the Cultural revolution. It was classic communist style theatre with large red banners flown dramatically by long children in military uniforms, singing their heart out for their motherland. A twist of kung fu fighting against the Japanese soldiers was a comical yet amusing touch however.
Marxist and Maoist theory and Chinese history students regularly visit the village in groups, many students from across China had come for the celebrations and to see the way Nanjie operates for themselves. Surprisingly China’s authorities have paradoxically clamped down on Marxism and Maoism students in recent years, whilst waving the Maoist banner of communism themselves. The Chinese Government has long been fearful of organised student activists and movements, even those promoting its own ideology, viewing them a potential threat to CCP control. This contradictory crackdown has seen students harassed, arrested and charged across the country.
The products the Nanjie Village Group produce are shipped across the country and have gained popularity due to the nature of the village. In the village however, the food products are sold at incredibly low prices available to the villagers and outsiders a like. These shops are owned by the group and do not create much of a profit, they do however act as great propaganda tools to show off the village to those visiting. Instant noodles which have become one of Nanjie Village’s biggest export are merely a few cents in these stores.
Like any place on earth, Nanjie Village has its problems, its biggest lies in the next generation of workers. Being the country China is today with its booming market and countless opportunities to make serious money, the socialist utopia that Mao envisioned doesn’t quite resonate with the youth of the village. Many of those in the village are aging and remember their revolutionary past, still holding onto the ideals of a shared socialist society, thus making the cogs of the village turn. Many of the children who have grown up in the village have done so in a different era, with access to the internet as well as Linying town next door, the fast pace and considerably capitalist way of life seems much more appealing than an uneventful life in the village. One girl I spoke to in the village described how she plans to move to a large city such as Shanghai to complete her bachelor’s degree, describing life in the village as ‘boring’ and how there is little option to move up. She explains how it's good for her parents because ‘they don’t understand modern China’. Behind Nanjie’s communal vegetable gardens are incomplete high-rise apartments originally meant to house more in the village, but with the elderly growing older and the residential workforce declining it is unlikely they will be completed, let alone occupied soon.
A communal apartment block in the residential district with Maoist quotes on the side of the building. The roads and walkways are lined with propaganda and portraits of Mao, this one reading ‘Quotations from Charman Mao, the core force leading our cause is the Communist Party of China. The theoretical basis guiding or thinking is Marxism-Leninism’.
A truck carrying Nanjie Village Group products out of the village, past the village's greenhouses where much of the food is grown for the factories.
Despite Chairman Mao’s disdain and clampdown on religion, the village has a mosque on its northern edge. About 10% of the population is Hui Muslim, an ethnoreligious group in China adhering to Sunni Islam. The mosque has heavy Chinese influence in its construction and does not play the call to prayer. Nanjie village caters to its Muslim population, a halal foods processing factory and a Muslim restaurant can be found within the village.
As an outsider, it’s hard to fully understand Nanjie Village. Whether it truly is a socialist utopia on the principles Mao Zedong laid down or a large corporation that simply provides its nostalgic workers with red themed benefits is debateable. Spending time in Nanjie, the capitalist elements become all too apparent despite the groups best efforts to present the village as a redoubt of Maoist thought, with the village acting as the selling point for its products across China. Combined with the decrease of younger residents leaving in search of a modern China and the increase reliance of labour from outside the village as those who live here grow towards retirement age, the last chasm of Mao’s China could be in jeopardy. Only time will tell whether Nanjie evolves into a red theme park-industrial estate or continues as a collective village, but as it stands today the village offers insight into the views and ideals of those who resist modern China and carry on Mao’s proletariat revolution into the twenty first century. And where a man whose utopian ideals starved more than 30 million people to death is still celebrated with God like status.