The Hechi detachment of the People’s Armed Police (PAP) in Guangxi has begun the military careers of its 2025 autumn recruits with a carefully staged patriotic education program designed to bind loyalty and purpose from day one. New soldiers stood before a statue of Chen Zhuowei, a local martyr honored as a ‘loyal guardian’ and a model of devotion to the Yao homeland, and recited the military oath as part of a ritual the unit called the 'first lesson'.
The detachment complemented the statue ceremony with a visit to an honour wall, guided storytelling of heroic episodes and a tour of the Hechi Revolutionary Memorial. Red-clad narrators recounted the Long March’s passage through the region, bloodshed during the liberation struggle, and the contemporary narrative of a strengthening force — a sequence intended to link recruits to a continuous revolutionary lineage.
Those exercises are neither incidental nor merely ceremonial. The PAP now sits at the core of China’s internal security architecture, responsible for riot control, border and port security, counterterrorism and disaster response. Since the 2018 reforms that folded the PAP into the Central Military Commission’s command structure, political education and ideological reliability have been emphasised as instruments to prevent fraying under stress and to ensure forces act in lockstep with the Party.
Locally, Hechi is a predominantly Yao area, and the detachment’s focus on a martyr from the Yao community serves dual purposes: to foster recruits’ esprit de corps and to signal to ethnic minorities that the PAP champions local ties while enforcing central authority. Commanders described the exercises as tightening the 'first button' of a soldier’s career — an explicit metaphor for setting the right political and moral orientation at the outset.
The Guangxi event fits a nationwide pattern. Military and paramilitary units across China have intensified 'red education' campaigns, refurbishing memorials, staging storytelling sessions and encouraging pilgrimages to revolutionary sites. The aim is to translate historical mythology into present-day obedience and combat-readiness as Beijing prepares forces for both conventional operations and the contingency of heightened domestic instability.
For the recruits themselves the programme appears to have achieved its immediate aims: organisers said it fired up combat enthusiasm and cemented the resolve to train and serve. For outside observers the ceremony offers a clear indicator of priorities: the Chinese leadership continues to invest heavily in shaping the political loyalties and social roles of forces that will be called upon first when the state judges stability to be at risk.