I have no idea what Chinese people do with the political imagery they receive, but is the idea that he's putting them consciously in mind of Mao era pageantry or just that he, and however many hundreds of people manage these things, is himself using the same style. High up in the Party, where it would seem they "draw lessons of history" all day long, they'd know what he's recalling, and maybe people old enough to have lived it would be getting shudders, but who else has sufficient political and media savvy? Everyone, perhaps? I have no idea.