Grassroots Party Branch of Azeke Village Honoured as National Advanced Primary Party Organisation for Integrated Cultural Heritage and Rural Revitalisation

On the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the national roll of advanced primary Party organisations was officially published, with the Party branch of Azeke Village under Aichun Village, Xinjie Town, Yuanyang County, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province, featured on the list. Composed of only ten Party members, this grassroots branch has been rooted within the core zone of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces World Cultural Heritage Site for a full decade. Through consistent, grounded work, the team has unlocked the value of age-old terraced farmlands and century-old mushroom-shaped Hani dwellings, transforming a once hollowed, declining mountain hamlet into a thriving, ecologically sound village with rising household incomes. The branch has forged a replicable path balancing living heritage conservation, integrated agriculture-culture-tourism growth and shared prosperity for all ethnic groups.

Azeke clings to mountain slopes, layered with rolling terraces and dotted with distinctive mushroom houses, forming an intact living repository of traditional Hani residential architecture and agrarian civilisation. For many years, narrow industrial scope and underdeveloped commercial sectors confined local livelihoods to low-yield terrace farming alone. Working-age residents migrated away for long-term employment, leaving mushroom houses vacant and dilapidated, sections of terraces untended, and traditional farming techniques without successors, trapping the hamlet in stagnation.

The Azeke Party branch took full responsibility to safeguard local cultural roots and lift resident earnings. In 2018, with technical guidance from a research team led by Professor Ba Jigang from Sun Yat-sen University, the village rolled out the Azeke Initiative, rejecting extensive, low-value exploitation to build an endogenous growth model centred on universal villager participation and collective benefit sharing. Party members conducted door-to-door visits to explain policy frameworks and calculate projected household returns, uniting residents around a unified development vision. All sixty-five village households took equity stakes in the collective rural tourism enterprise, clarifying operational frameworks, delivery models and benefit distribution mechanisms to lay solid groundwork for collective collaborative growth.

All ten Party members stepped forward to take on multiple frontline roles as terrace stewards, sanitation supervisors, tour guides and hospitality attendants, forming a dedicated terrace conservation squad. Specialised watercourse keepers were appointed to repair ridge lines and unclog irrigation channels at dawn and dusk, mobilising villagers to restore over thirty mu of abandoned terraced land. A village-wide red-and-black sanitation ranking system was introduced to regulate household upkeep, cleaning residential yards and alleyways and breathing new vitality into the ancient settlement.

The terrace landscapes and mushroom dwellings form the cultural core of Azeke, and their ecological and cultural preservation underpins residents’ long-term livelihood security. All planning steers clear of over-commercialised development, retaining collective governance and equitable benefit distribution to place villagers as the primary beneficiaries of rural transformation. Frontline Party members volunteer to pilot homestay operations and host tourist groups, spearheading trial projects and overcoming operational hurdles. Steady village aesthetic upgrades, consistent annual collective dividends and the return of young migrants stand as tangible outcomes of grassroots Party service.

Talent development sits at the heart of the village’s revitalisation strategy. The branch delivers regular vocational training covering homestay management and tour guiding to cultivate a local cohort of cultural tourism practitioners. Academic research teams from tertiary institutions reside within the village to offer targeted expertise supporting industrial upgrading, creative tourism product development and cultural inheritance. Improved local commercial prospects and stable household income growth draw large numbers of former migrant youth back to launch small businesses, injecting youthful momentum into the historic hamlet.

An innovative tiered profit-sharing mechanism guarantees equitable distribution of collective gains across all villagers. A core 37–63 split framework is supplemented by a detailed 4-3-2-1 allocation formula, linking dividend proportions to terrace cultivation, historic dwelling maintenance and village public duty hours to reward sustained cultural and environmental stewardship. Since the collective tourism firm began operations in 2019, total distributed dividends across the village have reached 3.4525 million yuan, translating to an average household payout exceeding 53,000 yuan.

Vacant mushroom houses have been renovated into distinctive rural homestays, with immersive offerings including terrace farming experiences, intangible cultural heritage performances and ethnic costume photography gaining consistent visitor traction. Eighteen permanent local posts have been created, alongside emerging small-scale ventures in homestay hospitality, catering and rural photography, securing stable work for forty-one villagers close to their homes. Local residents balance employment with family care while raising steady household incomes.

Guided by robust grassroots Party leadership, Azeke has revitalised its world heritage assets, expanded sustainable industries, lifted resident living standards and refined village governance systems. The national advanced primary Party organisation accreditation marks official recognition of the branch’s track record alongside fresh impetus for future work. The branch will use this milestone to deepen integrated agriculture, cultural and tourism development, uphold rigorous world heritage conservation standards, advance industrial expansion, comprehensive livelihood safeguards and refined grassroots governance, and press ahead with sustained progress in rural revitalisation and shared prosperity.