China Celebrates Mao's 120th Birthday

[Turk]

(Reuters) - China celebrates the 120th birthday of Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China, on Thursday, but will be scaling back festivities as President Xi Jinping embarks on broad economic reforms which have unsettled leftists.

Qiu, a 65-year-old retired shipyard worker wearing a Red Army hat, poses for a photograph with his bicycle bearing a portrait of China's late Chairman Mao Zedong on a street in Shanghai, December 2, 2013.

Mao has become a potent symbol for leftists within the ruling Communist Party who feel that three decades of market-based reform have gone too far, creating social inequalities like a yawning rich-poor gap and pervasive corruption.

In venerating Mao, they sometimes seek to put pressure on the current leadership and its market-oriented policies while managing to avoid expressing open dissent.

While members of the party's elite inner core, the Politburo Standing Committee, are likely to attend a high-profile event in Beijing to mark the anniversary, activities nationwide have been toned down, two sources with ties to the leadership told Reuters.

"The level will be high, but the number of events will be scaled back," one of the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions for talking to a foreign reporter without permission.

"The attendance of Standing Committee members is to placate leftists after reforms at the third plenum," the source added.

China last month unwrapped its boldest set of economic and social reforms in nearly three decades, relaxing its one-child policy and further freeing up markets in order to put the world's second-largest economy on a more stable footing.

Still, Xi and his team gave themselves until 2020 to achieve "decisive" results - a tacit acknowledgement of the difficulty of the task when the state-run sector championed during Mao's heyday remains strong and when many are unhappy with growing social problems bought by the party's economic reforms.

"The celebrations have to be grand or people will not be happy," said another source, who has ties to the party's traditional leftists.

Mao, who died in 1976, remains a divisive figure.

His image adorns banknotes and his embalmed body attracts hundreds if not thousands of visitors a day to Beijing.

While the party has acknowledged he made mistakes, there has yet to be an official accounting for the chaos of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution or the millions of deaths from starvation during the 1958-61 Great Leap Forward.

NO SIDE SATISFIED?

Xi suffered personally during the Cultural Revolution when his father was imprisoned. Xi was sent down to the countryside to live with peasants, like millions of other urban Chinese youth.

While visiting Hunan, the southern province where Mao was born, in early November, Xi said the celebrations for the anniversary should be "solemn, simple and pragmatic", according to state media.

That did not stop Xi from lauding Maoism in several speeches this year, as he sought to appeal to leftists in the wake of a scandal involving Bo Xilai, a former contender for top leadership who pushed an egalitarian, quasi-Maoist agenda until he was felled and jailed for corruption.

"In the end, probably no side will be very satisfied," said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based political commentator and historian, referring to how China will mark the birthday.

"The reformers don't think Mao should be commemorated, because he committed crimes, but his supporters think the commemorations aren't enough."

Chinese newspapers have reported that several events originally planned for Thursday have been adjusted or changed completely, including a concert which was supposed to celebrate Mao but which has been relabeled a new year gala.

"The authorities don't want the commemorations for Mao to be high-profile," influential tabloid the Global Times, published by the party's official People's Daily, quoted Wang Zhanyang, director of the Political Science Department at the Central Institute of Socialism, as saying.

"Some regional conservative people and officials with vested interests want to restrain reform by falsely promoting some of Mao's most conservative thoughts, which is not what the party follows," Wang added.

Still, the message appears not to have totally seeped through to Hunan, where many still venerate Mao as a demigod.

The town of Shaoshan, where Mao was born on December 26, 1893, has spent about 2 billion yuan ($329 million) on 12 projects for the anniversary celebration, the official Xiangtan Daily reported.

($1 = 6.0714 Chinese yuan)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/25/us-china-mao-idUSBRE9BO0B020131225

[Ambrocious]

Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book)(1964).

Historian: Mao Greatest Mass Murderer in World History

Edited December 26, 2013 by Ambrocious

[dMog]

so you can easily see yet hardly ever comment on the real facts of the absolute ruthless ways and means how a communist state leader gains power and holds onto it .. all that and yet you still practically worship anyone who makes up stuff or tells lies about your very own way of life in america...is America perfect...by no means ... but the reality..it is by far a better way for its citizens than the alternatives in a communist or totalitarian county...you actions alone just on this forum would have been enough to cause your "disappearance "not to mention the lives of your entire family and most of your friends being put at risk if you would be living almost anywhere else in the world.... in every single communist state there ever has been not to mention at one time or another in very recent times, almost every Latin american country to the south of your country.... again..is america perfect...no it is not... but really,;; speaking out publicly against your very basic institutions such as the government, the judicial system, the police and the military is never tolerated for long in far too many other countries in this world..case i n point... any one that has stood against or simply spoken out in Russia about putin...has had a very dear price to pay...he threw them all in jail...and totally ruined one of the wealthiest men in russia for daring to run against him ...or for that matter what the leader of North korea has recently done...executed his uncle to show he holds the power in the family...never heard you speaking out against this and why... because it does nor fit into your nice neat little box of your government out to kill us all and being the chief tool of rich pulling the strings to obtain our timely deaths

[Turk]

11 Slogans That Changed China: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24923993

[flitox]

if tyrany is 'shut your mouth', democracy is 'keep on talking'...

DMog, according to what you say, someone like Manning should still be free in the USA!

[dMog]

if tyrany is 'shut your mouth', democracy is 'keep on talking'...

DMog, according to what you say, someone like Manning should still be free in the USA!

you are missing the entire point of what i said...ambro actually thinks the American government is tool of the super wealthy that are using the american government to kill off the entire population of the entire world except for the 10% of the most wealthy people in the world...however much wrong the USA does in in America and out side it's borders it is still among the best places to live in the world because of the type of government it does have,,,and really...to believe that crap,,,, something is very wrong in his world...and i make no apologies calling him on it...and yes if he lived in most places in this world he would be "disappeared" for saying the very things he takes takes for granted here...freedom of speech is still the foundation of his country...look what took place in Argentina recently.... you spoke out against the government ...you went missing and i stand by my assertion that ambro when a government to day ACTUALLY does something really bad to it's own citizens pretty much sit on his typing fingers and waits for some totally fabricated alleged false flag op to begin spouting off his info wars proof as to why it was the american government doing it and not terrorists or a lone gun man...all i am saying to him is that he can actually go out and do some real good in the world hand on instead of sitting in front of his keyboard helping infowars make his money

Edited December 27, 2013 by dMog

[flitox]

looks like you missed mine too.

freedom of speech is a big illusion, they don't care because just as long as you keep on talking, you ain't doing them much harm and they can ealisy put you down.

but if you're itching them too much by showing real fact they cant deny, sooner than you can think you'll ended up accused of raping someone, selling drugs or dead by 'suicide'.

they just do it a little more hypocritally because they need to keep that illusion of freedom to do their business in peace; otherwise they would turn too into those paranoia nutcases communism always had as leaders.

Ambro, sorry but there is no new world order because those people are already at the top pulling the strings in the shadow and yet they cant want to kill the whole world except for the 10% wealthy since they need the people to grow them some food, built their planes & helicopters & boats & houses & XL tv. they need them to work their asses off in their factories and they need them to buy their products so they can remain super wealthy which allow them to shit on you.

[dMog]

looks like you missed mine too.

freedom of speech is a big illusion, they don't care because just as long as you keep on talking, you ain't doing them much harm and they can ealisy put you down.

but if you're itching them too much by showing real fact they cant deny, sooner than you can think you'll ended up accused of raping someone, selling drugs or dead by 'suicide'.

they just do it a little more hypocritally because they need to keep that illusion of freedom to do their business in peace; otherwise they would turn too into those paranoia nutcases communism always had as leaders.

Ambro, sorry but there is no new world order because those people are already at the top pulling the strings in the shadow and yet they cant want to kill the whole world except for the 10% wealthy since they need the people to grow them some food, built their planes & helicopters & boats & houses & XL tv. they need them to work their asses off in their factories and they need them to buy their products so they can remain super wealthy which allow them to shit on you.

much more believable than than ambro's conspiracy....all one has to do is look back even 100 years ago to see how far the free world has come to know our daily life has greatly improved form what it used to be ....even in pre world war one the super rich really tried to stick it to the average person...and fought a very hard fight to not allow the middle class to flourish in all western countries...after world war two the big boys in the sand box realized they were all getting their standing armies returning home and those ex soldiers all needed to make a very good living or they would rise up against the powers that be and start a revolution if they had to sit at home and not be able to feed their families...hence the GI bill in the usa and similar things happening in all other countries... and the super rich they found way to keep getting rich but still decried the fact that had to share the power with the ever growing middle class and working poor finally had a bigger say too...so really as much as anyone wants to decry western countries it is still the better form of government for its people than ANY other alternative out there.....travel to former eastern bloc countries, china. latin and south america and look for your self how the average family really lives...you will see what i mean...most of you that live in the middle class would not put up that way of life if that was all your government allowed for you