What China Reveres Today

An interesting way of looking into the question you posed is to look at the films produced in the mainland which in turn reflect what the censor is endorsing and what is not. The censor is obviously the powerful CCP propaganda commission.

At one time around the turn of the milenium, the various Qing emperors were chronicled in positive light against what we were once taught - racist, brutal and etc.

Kangxi was portrayed to have unified the modern China against the various rebelions never mind that some were led by the Han like the Zheng in Taiwan and Wu in Yuanan.
In another series, Yongzheng was credited to have clean up the corrupted bureacracy never mind that he launched brutal purge on scholars critical of his regime; the same goes to Qianlong who was credited to consolidate the empire never mind that his regime marked the decline of the chinese civilization.

These Qing's historical drama was followed by various series on Wudi, Taizhong (Li Shiming), Taizu (Zhu yuanchang)and others.

The message through these emperor-centric series is clearly one for unified China and that the central government is more partial to the peoples againist the corrupted local government or the renegade warlord. (this justify the need for a strong central government). Today, wee see lot of aggrieved Chinese petitioned their grievance through adminisgtrative means in Beijing rather than resorting it via the legal system. This of course point to the disfunctional legal system in which the judges are not regarded as independent. This is another story.

I recall a particular series (Towards the Republic, literal translation) that gave a revionist view on the turn of events during the 19th century. This series was the first attempt made to reproach the KMT linking up the two republic to SYS.

This happened in early 2000s. From then on until the most recent film "The Founding of the Republic", the theme remains the same. This film is a romanticized version of history where Mao was invitably portrayed in the most heroic and magnificent manner and Chiang was unusually for a mainland film portrayed as one who was a victim rather than a leader of corruption and incompetency by his own administration.

During the same time, critical literature or investigative report are constantly being scrutinized and the reporter.writer at time were harassed if not sacked from position. Activists or human right lawyers were beaten up and at time jailed for leaking secret or some made-up charges.

No question, the reverence today is still tipped in favor of the official preference - unification and central government centered at CCP rule.

There is still not loosening of censor over literatures, film production critical to the CCP rule. I only hope to see one film chronicling the misdeed of Mao or the tragedy of Cultural Revolution or the disaster of Great Leap Forward, will I believe that China is heading to the right direction.

The fact remains that the continuous adoration to Mao as seen in the recent national parade does not augur well for a free and democratic China. What will be a historical moment of China transformation is the the moment when Mao's portrait is taken off the Tiananmen and the RMB, that's the day signifiying real and meaningful reform.

To conclude, CCP is more of Qin than Zhou and more Han-Tang than Song. Having said this, China must depart from even Zhou and Song and align herself more with the universal values. The claim of Chinese characteristic is just an excuse to disassociate with democracy, human right and constitutionalism.

I would like to think that copying the USA,a continental system, to China which is pretty much a continent itself, will do more good than the present form of unitary structure. I will leave this discussion to another day.