Among the Communist rhetoric cleverly repurposed by China’s anti-zero-Covid protesters is a phrase that Mao Zedong employed: a single spark can start a prairie fire. When a political system is so rigid, observers can easily fall prey to one of two conflicting tendencies. The first is to seize upon any significant unrest as the first crack in the edifice, which could bring the whole system down – as when the death of Mohamed Bouazizi precipitated the Arab spring. Since such collapses are usually astonishing at the time, even if explicable…
Tag: Mao Zedong
Bao Tong, 90, Dies; Top Chinese Official Imprisoned After Tiananmen
Mr. Bao’s wife, Jiang Zongcao, died on Aug. 21 at 90. Their deaths have been widely mourned by friends and supporters in China, although official media have not mentioned the deaths and social media sites have tried to stifle the news. Bao Tong was born on Nov. 5, 1932, in Haining, Zhejiang Province, in eastern China, the third of six children. His father, Bao Peiren, a manager in an enamel products factory, and his mother, Wu Heng, a homemaker, immersed their children in learning. The family fled the Japanese invasion…
Three Things Americans Should Learn From Xi’s China
About four decades ago, Chinese Communist Party officials scoured the world for best practices, which they cautiously piloted to create the economic miracle that their country showcases today. These days, though, the Communist Party champions Chinese solutions, and not just for China but also for the rest of the world. Xi Jinping, who just received an unusual third term at the helm of the world’s most populous country, embodies a far more confident China that has begun to portray itself as an alternative to the West. Creating a Chinese version…
The most powerful man in China since Mao: Xi Jinping is on the brink of total power
This week in Beijing, Xi Jinping will preside over one of his country’s great shows of political theatre and seal a long-planned political triumph, consolidating his power and extending his rule. The Chinese Communist party is poised to formally hand Xi another five years as party boss, and therefore leader of the country, at a summit that will also move his allies into key roles and elevate the status of his writings on power and government. The 20th Party Congress will – barring unprecedented last-minute drama – confirm him as…
Xi Jinping Is the Second Coming of Mao Zedong
Mao is widely regarded today in the West as, at best, a flawed patriot and, at worst, a brutal dictator. The Great Leap Forward of 1958 to 1962, his misguided attempt at rapid industrialization, contributed to a famine that killed tens of millions of Chinese. So intent were ordinary Chinese on raising steel production that they melted down hoes, plows and other iron implements in crude backyard furnaces, leaving them nothing to work the fields. Less than a decade later, Mao instigated the Cultural Revolution: Students turned in their teachers…
China’s censorship reaches far beyond its own borders | Letter
I read with interest your editorial (The Guardian view on China’s censors: the sense of an (acceptable) ending, 24 August). In 2016, I was about to publish a book on pop art, which had a short section on artists responding to political and social turmoil in the 1960s, and which included an illustration of Jim Dine’s Drag – Johnson and Mao (1967). The etching depicts Mao Zedong of the People’s Republic of China and the US president Lyndon B Johnson, who sent troops to counter Chinese communist support in the…
China’s ‘Zero-Covid’ Mess Proves Autocracy Hurts Everyone
After the city locked down its 25 million residents and grounded most delivery services in early April, many people encountered problems sourcing food, regardless of their socioeconomic status. Some set multiple alarms for the different restocking times of grocery delivery apps that start as early as 6 a.m. Updated April 13, 2022, 6:35 a.m. ET In the past few days, a hot topic in WeChat groups has been whether sprouted potatoes were safe to eat, a few Shanghai residents told me. Neighbors resorted to a barter system to exchange, say,…
How Beethoven inspired 50 years of cultural exchange between the US and China
It was a big year for Tan Dun, the Oscar-winning Chinese musician who would go on to compose the soundtrack for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In the autumn of 1973, Tan, then a teenager, was sent to a rural commune in Hunan province to plant rice. China was at the height of the Cultural Revolution. One day, Tan heard a sound from a loudspeaker in the field. “Do you want to hear some interesting music? This is called ‘symphony’. The Philadelphia Orchestra is in China,” a friend said…
Fifty years on, ‘Nixon in China’ loses its sparkle in Beijing and Washington
On a brisk winter day in February 1972, the 34-year-old American diplomat, Winston Lord, arrived in Beijing with his boss, Henry Kissinger, and president Richard Nixon. Barely an hour after they checked in to their guest house, a message came: “Chairman Mao wants to see president Nixon.” The urgency from Mao resonated with the excitement from the American delegation. The establishment of bilateral relations offered great opportunities for both sides in facing a common enemy: the Soviet Union. For more than two decades since the Chinese communists took over the…
‘Beijing Spring’ Review: The Politics of Aesthetics
Can art effect real change in the world? To this ever-urgent question, “Beijing Spring” — a new documentary about the titular movement for democratic expression that exploded in the wake of the Cultural Revolution in China — responds with a resounding yes. Directed by Andy Cohen with Gaylen Ross, the film focuses on the Stars Art Group, a collective of self-taught practitioners who seized on the tumult after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 and deployed their art like Molotov cocktails. They circulated their paintings and literature via underground magazines; papered…