Decoding Rural China's Governance: How six villages turn viral fame into shared prosperity

BEIJING, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 2 October 2026 – People's Daily's video series Decoding Rural China's Governance, which explores grassroots governance and rural development in different parts of China, follows this six-village tourism cluster in its latest episode One Green Haven, Six Linked Villages, exploring how the six villages are turning online attention into a shared opportunity for rural development.

Xixinan village first went viral in 2023, when photos of its fairy-tale greenery spread on Chinese platforms. But the tourism boom also raised new questions: How could the village generate revenue without charging an entrance fee? And how could it share the benefits with neighboring villages rather than compete with them?

The video looks beyond Xixinan to five nearby villages that, together with Xixinan, form a six-village tourism network. The villages have developed a range of experiences, including bamboo raft rides, a sightseeing train, homestays and nighttime fish-lantern tours. By connecting these attractions into a complete travel route, the network encourages visitors to stay longer and spend more time in the town, allowing more local businesses to benefit from growing tourist traffic.

Rather than competing for visitors, the villages have embraced a cluster development approach, developing complementary businesses, connecting tourism resources and sharing opportunities.

At the heart of this cooperation is the villages' revenue-sharing model: 70 percent goes to the village where a business operates, 20 percent is distributed according to the original equity ratio (Xixinan village takes 5 percent and the other five villages take 3 percent each) and 10 percent is retained by the town's operating company as working capital. The mechanism allows different villages to benefit from shared tourism resources while encouraging each to develop its own distinctive businesses.

More than 70 percent of residents in this town work in tourism. In 2025, each village generated more than 1 million yuan (about $140,000) in revenue, helping ensure that the benefits of tourism are shared across the town.

This video follows the journey from Xixinan's viral rise to the broader transformation of the six villages, showing how natural scenery, connected tourism routes and a shared-interest mechanism can turn visitor traffic into broader rural development.

By linking six villages into a development cluster, the model offers a glimpse of how rural communities in China are exploring new ways to share opportunities and prosperity.

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