While Mao's announcement from the rostrum of Tiananmen Gate was intended to deliver the message that China was under new management following decades of colonial humiliation and war, it actually ushered in further political and social turmoil and set a pattern that is being repeated under party leader Xi Jinping today, experts told RFA Mandarin. The evaluation of China's recent past isn't just about history, they said. It is closely bound up with the current political line in Beijing -- to criticize Mao, albeit slightly, is to indicate a move away from his policies, while to echo him, as current leader Xi Jinping has done repeatedly in recent years, indicates a more left-leaning direction.
fredag 11. oktober 2024
Mao Zedong's mass political campaigns still drive Chinese politics
Seventy-five years after Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China, his legacy is still being felt in the form of mass political campaigns and witch-hunts that keep the people divided while shoring up Communist Party rule, analysts and scholars said.
While Mao's announcement from the rostrum of Tiananmen Gate was intended to deliver the message that China was under new management following decades of colonial humiliation and war, it actually ushered in further political and social turmoil and set a pattern that is being repeated under party leader Xi Jinping today, experts told RFA Mandarin. The evaluation of China's recent past isn't just about history, they said. It is closely bound up with the current political line in Beijing -- to criticize Mao, albeit slightly, is to indicate a move away from his policies, while to echo him, as current leader Xi Jinping has done repeatedly in recent years, indicates a more left-leaning direction.
While Mao's announcement from the rostrum of Tiananmen Gate was intended to deliver the message that China was under new management following decades of colonial humiliation and war, it actually ushered in further political and social turmoil and set a pattern that is being repeated under party leader Xi Jinping today, experts told RFA Mandarin. The evaluation of China's recent past isn't just about history, they said. It is closely bound up with the current political line in Beijing -- to criticize Mao, albeit slightly, is to indicate a move away from his policies, while to echo him, as current leader Xi Jinping has done repeatedly in recent years, indicates a more left-leaning direction.
