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 Jiangqiandeng 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.