China's 'Invisible Martyrs': Beijing Frames KMT Spy Executions in Taiwan as Reunification Narrative

Fujian province, the closest mainland Chinese province to Taiwan, is an important site for Beijing's messaging towards the island. In the first of a two-part series, Xinlu Liang examines how Beijing is framing the executions of Communist Party spies in Taiwan within a reunification narrative.

A courtyard house in an old quarter of Fuzhou, capital of the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian, has become the unlikeliest of national pilgrimage sites. For decades, the residence at No 1 Jiangqiandang in Luozhou town, Cangshan district, was a crumbling relic, housing nearly a dozen families who lived among peeling paint and rotting wood close to the tree-lined banks of the Min River.

But in October, everything changed thanks to a hit drama, Silent Honour, about Communist spies executed in Taiwan, one of whom, Wu Shi, used to live there. The following month, the families were moved out and in a frantic three-month burst of activity the property was renovated. It opened its doors in early February, just in time to greet the rush of visitors – up to 20,000 a day – over Chinese New Year.

Since April, it has since been designated as one of the country's 25 "National Security Education Bases" – sites used to promote national security awareness.