China Millennium Monument
[4] Like other initiatives such as the creation of Confucius Institutes from 2004, it has been associated with CCP efforts to re-embrace pre-Communist Chinese legacies after the less history-obsessed approach of Deng Xiaoping.
A 2000 CCP celebratory poster by propaganda artist Liu Xiqi features Jiang together with his predecessors Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, each flanked with representative architectural icons: Tiananmen Gate for Mao, the Hong Kong skyline for Deng (as architect of the handover of Hong Kong), and for Jiang, the China Millennium Monument on one side and the Pudong District of Shanghai on the other.
The latter can rotate around a vertical axis and supports an inclined metal spire branded the "Time and Space Probing Pin" above a central circular platform.
[5]: 191 The Great Century Hall's 5-meter-high circular wall is adorned with episodes of idealized Chinese 5000-years-long history, sculpted in precious stone low relief.
It features heroic description of historic characters from Qin Shi Huang to Deng Xiaoping and ends with a calligraphy by Jiang Zemin that reads "The Chinese nation will achieve a great renaissance based on the final attainment of the unification of the motherland and the construction of a rich, powerful, democratic, and civilized socialist modern country.
"[5]: 191–192 On the upper level, a 140-meters-long circular corridor features 40 bronze statues of important figures of Chinese culture and science, and (on the rotating qián) 56 sculpted stone slabs representing China's officially recognized ethnic groups.
Other individuals featured include Laozi, Confucius, Sima Qian, Zu Chongzhi, and for the modern era, Zhan Tianyou, Cai Yuanpei, Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Mei Lanfang, Mao Dun, and Liang Sicheng.
[5]: 192 No significant collection was assembled for that purpose, however, resulting in what scholar Wang Liwei, who was involved in the museum's preparatory work, has referred to in an UNESCO publication as "an embarrassing situation."
[2] Exhibitions of the museum since then have included those on Contemporary American Realism in 2012,[12] the first Beijing Photo Biennial in 2013,[13] paintings by Xu Beihong in 2014,[14] creations of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2018,[15] works by Raphael in 2020–2021,[16] and Egyptian mummies in 2021.
