A new seven story statue as China reconsiders Mao Zedong.
“Long Live Mao Zedong Thought” has been resuscitated after banners bearing this battle cry were held high by college students and nationalistic Beijing residents during parades… a search for an ‘ultimate faith’ that could speed up China’s rise in the wake of the global financial crisis.
In fact, on November 14, less than 48 hours before Obama’s arrival in Beijing, the official news agency Xinhua released a long statement in Chinese only explaining that Xi Jinping, vice president of the state and president of the Central Party School, had held a conference about the necessity to “actively encourage the building of a ruling party study model of Marxism”.
China takes a new look at Marxism, Francesco Sisci
Power struggle behind revival of Maoism, Willy Lam
While Mao was said to have ushered in the new China by pulling down the ‘three big mountains‘ of feudalism, bureaucratic capitalism and imperialism, his latter-day followers are engaged in an equally epic struggle against the ‘three new mountains‘ of runaway prices in the medical, education and housing sectors.
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“China’s leaders stress they do not want to export their political model, and they even ask others not to imitate them but to look for their own development paths. Still, China’s politicians are becoming unwilling to endure lectures on politics or ethics, given the fact that their system is working today, while others falter.”…
“We will certainly change our political system, but your parliamentary democracy also must reform; otherwise, it risks being derailed and overwhelmed by demagoguery and populism.”