Word: mao
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...street and signed by, of all people, an auto mechanic in a nearby garage. In a society where the wall poster is the semiofficial harbinger of political shifts and cultural upheavals, the document on Wang Fu Ching Street was undeniably momentous. As part of a continuing campaign to deglorify Mao Tsetung, the poster dared for the first time to criticize the late Great Helmsman by name for serious political mistakes. Indirectly, in a move that could have ominous repercussions, the poster also criticized Hua Kuo-feng, Mao's chosen successor as Party Chairman and Premier...
...While Mao was being nailed to the wall, Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-p'ing received flattering references in the same poster. Mao, it said harshly, "because his thinking was metaphysical in the last years of his life and for all kinds of other reasons, supported the Gang of Four in raising their hands to strike down Comrade Teng Hsiao-p'ing." Although the commentary omitted specifics, few people who read it were unaware of the reference to one of the strangest and most important events in recent Chinese political history...
...thousands of citizens marched on the square, but were repulsed by militiamen. The incident erupted into the most remarkable public demonstration in Peking in 30 years: before it ended, angry marchers had set fire to automobiles and a nearby building. Countless protesters were bloodied and hustled off to jail. Mao was outraged by the affair and blamed it on Teng; the Chairman insisted that Teng, a protege of Chou's, had orchestrated the demonstration to enhance his own position. Mao pronounced the demonstrators "counterrevolutionaries" and purged Teng as a potential heir apparent in favor of the relatively unknown...
...poster remained on Wang Fu Ching Street for two days, indicating that the auto mechanic who wrote it, if indeed a mechanic was the author, had high-level approval. Moreover, as the week rolled on, additional posters supplemented the original. Words like "fascist" and "dictatorial" were used to describe Mao's rule. One poster attacked Mao openly for having purged Teng and suggested that Mao had been involved in the activities of two of Peking's now most reviled political figures, Mao's wife Chiang Ch'ing and former Defense Minister Lin Piao. Another poster called...
...others?have been negotiating to sell goods to China or set up plants there. But some of the biggest hopes are for Yankee traders to buy oil for the lamps of America. Last week, in a move that seems to signal a new economic pragmatism by Peking's post-Mao leaders, Coastal States Gas Corp. became the first U.S. company ever to buy oil from the People's Republic. The Texas firm signed a deal to bring 3.6 million bbl. of crude into California, beginning early next year...