Charles Parton

Cult of Mao: Will the Olympics punish China?

(Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images)

As one of the embassy drivers I met in Beijing saw it, ferrying diplomats to meetings was secondary to his responsibility of lecturing us on China’s true place in the world. A conversational bully, to Mr Wang listening was a sign of weakness. Crossing Tiananmen with its vast picture of Chairman Mao, I interrupted his flow to ask his opinion of the Great Helmsman.

‘Great man. He made China great.’

‘But,’ I asked, ‘what about the fact that he caused the avoidable deaths of a minimum of 36 million Chinese, the figure reached by a Chinese Communist party (CCP) member and official news agency journalist after years of research?’

‘No, it was not so many.’

We shall see what action the IOC takes against the Chinese cyclists. Don’t hold your breath: you risk auto-asphyxiation

Eventually, after a negotiation in which I disingenuously suggested 10 million as the total, he generously conceded 15 million as reasonable.

‘So what do you think of a man who needlessly caused the death of 15 million Chinese people?’

‘Well… er, he was still a great man.’

I think of this conversation when I look at the many statues, badges and pictures of Mao which adorn my study. Even with a sense of irony, is it acceptable to have images of the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century looking over my shoulder?

And I thought of it again when two Chinese cyclists wore Mao badges as they accepted their gold Olympic medals.

With the CCP using nationalism to boost its legitimacy, presumably they thought that this would go down well back home. It did for a few hours. The Global Times, the CCP’s in house paper, lauded their move. Then the article was taken down and state broadcasters airbrushed the badges from the photos.

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Written by
Charles Parton
Charles Parton is a former UK diplomat who spent 22 years working in China. He is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the Council on Geostrategy.

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