Making Shanghai red again? Policies, practices, and problems in the rebranding of Shanghai’s red culture

This article situates itself within the broader scholarship on urban cultural branding and the reinvention of red heritage in Shanghai. Through discourse analysis of municipal policies and exhibitions at key red cultural venues, specifically the Site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Soong Ching-ling Memorial Residence, this study examines how Shanghai’s red culture has been reconceptualized in the context of Shanghai’s official cultural branding strategy. While previous studies have explored the revival of red culture in Shanghai, they have largely taken its ideological consistency for granted, overlooking how its historical meanings have been reconstructed. This research finds that red culture, once rooted in revolutionary struggle and opposition to capitalism, has been reconfigured to co-exist with Haipai (Shanghai-style cosmopolitan) culture, erasing ideological contradictions in favour of a narrative of harmony. These findings contribute to discussions on the instrumentalization of cultural narration in urban development, revealing how contemporary red culture functions as a flexible branding tool rather than a site of ideological contestation.