IT IS ESTIMATED that the Chinese tourists will pay more than 100 million trips to places of historical interest related to the development of the Communist Party of China this summer. Guangming Daily comments:

Visiting sites of significance to the Party does offer some appreciation of Chinese history and social development. But it is noteworthy that the "red tourism" has become a convenient cover for some public institutes to pay taxpayers' money for their Party members' tourism under the guise of patriotism education and political enlightenment.

There are such "red tourism" spots nationwide. But the organizers tend to ignore the "red tourism" sites in their own cities or nearby, choosing instead to organize tours to more remote ones. In summer, the "red tourism" sites in the cool mountainous regions such as Guizhou province in Southwest China, which was an important stop on the Red Army's Long March in the early 1930s, and Shaanxi province in Northwest China, the longtime revolutionary base for the Party from the 1930s to 1940s, are popular destinations.

On July 1, the Party's birthday, some popular sites have to put a ceiling on the number of visitors for safety reasons.

The natural environment and ecology around these sites are mostly well protected and there are comfortable hotels and entertainment facilities. It is no secret that the supposed ideological baptism has actually become a leisure activity or sightseeing experience for some Party members.

The organizers of such tours can easily obtain reimbursement for "red tourism" expenditure, which they classify as Party history education, organizational construction or political learning.

The disciplinary and supervisory watchdogs should take concrete actions to check the practice, which has persisted for years and is seemingly immune to the anti-graft campaign just because it is "politically correct".