Mao Zedong's 120th birth anniversary is approaching. His supporters not only sing his praises, but also lash out viciously at his critics
By J.M. | BEIJING
There's still a market for Mao
IN THIS week’s print edition we report on the fine line President Xi Jinping is trying to tread in commemorating the 120th birth anniversary of Mao Zedong on December 26th. Mao-lovers in China see the occasion as particularly special. Reaching the age of 60 is considered a great event in Chinese culture. Mao, though lying embalmed in a crystal casket in Tiananmen Square as he has been since 1977, a few months after his death, will soon be doubly blessed. (Shortly after his birthday, it has been reported in the Chinese media, his body is removed for an annual immersion in preservative).
Analects reported in June on how the local government of Shaoshan, the village where Mao was born in Hunan province, is preparing to mark the date with big celebrations and a flurry of public-works projects. To judge at least from the number of pilgrims to the area, all this fuss over a man viewed by liberal intellectuals as a brutal tyrant will not be considered amiss by many Chinese. Statistics displayed on a giant video screen in a Mao museum in Shaoshan show that there were 1.3m visitors to the village in 2001. By 2012 there were nearly six times as many. This year, say state-run media (here, in Chinese), officials are expecting 10m. In the fast-changing, ultra-competitive China of the 21st century, Mao and the memories he evokes of more egalitarian days hold a powerful allure for some. Numerous stalls in Shaoshan (pictured) sell statues and portraits of Mao, flashing electronic Mao talismans and copies of his little red book.
Mao is also an iconic figure to some Chinese ultra-nationalists. We reported in 2011 on how such fanatics had been lashing out (online and in threatening phone calls) at Mao Yushi, an octogenarian economist in Beijing who has been critical of the late chairman (whose surname in Chinese is written differently from Mr Mao’s). In 2012 the Maoist nationalists suffered a setback with the arrest of their latter-day hero, Bo Xilai, a provincial Communist Party chief who tried to revive a mini cult of Mao. Mr Bo was sentenced to life in prison in September for corruption and abuse of power.
Pressure on Mr Mao, the economist, has not let up, however. In Changsha, the capital of Hunan about 90 minutes’ drive from Shaoshan, Maoists demonstrated in May outside a large teahouse-cum-bookshop where Mr Mao was due to give a talk. Photographs of the protest (here, on a Maoist website in Beijing) show protesters bearing portraits of Chairman Mao and banners denouncing Mr Mao with slogans such as “Old Mao the traitor has brought calamity on the nation”, “When a traitor crosses the street everyone shouts out ‘beat him’” and “Be on guard against the traitor Mao running around committing crimes in the hometown of the great man [Chairman Mao]”. A witness says some of the demonstrators went up to the fifth-floor teahouse and spray-painted words such as “traitor” on a metal shutter that the owners used to prevent the Maoists barging in. It was, he says, “fascist violence”. Staff at the teahouse quietly informed those who had registered to attend Mr Mao’s speech of a different venue where, unawares to the Maoists, the event went ahead (Mr Mao’s speech, in which he praises democracy and stresses the importance of human rights, can be seen here, in Chinese).
In November a small group of Maoist protesters gathered outside a hotel in the south-western city of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to protest against a speech given there by Mr Mao. Photographs and a video of the demonstration were posted on a Maoist website. One banner says: “Any one who opposes Mao Zedong should get out of Kunming”. A man holds a placard calling Mr Mao “a stooge bred by the Americans”. A woman with dark glasses holds another saying: “Pick up the dog-beating stick and give the traitorous old dog Mao Yushi a good thrashing”. Such public attacks on a liberal intellectual have been an eerie reminder of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, even though, for all their venom, the anti-Mao Yushi protesters have so far appeared far more innocuous than the ferocious Red Guard mobs of Chairman Mao’s day.
Ominously, Mr Mao was featured in a 92-minute government video that circulated widely online in late October before it was deleted by censors from servers inside the country. The film was apparently made for viewing within China’s army to instruct officers about the supposed dangers of ideological infiltration by the West, especially America. Mr Mao is among several people who it hints are “turncoats” spreading “anti-party” ideas (about 78 minutes into the video). “The degree of their frenzy makes one wide-eyed with anger”, intones the narrator. It makes for chilling viewing.
