Word: mao
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...early 1949, China's in the endgame of its civil war and Mao Zedong's communist forces are poised to take Beijing. Just south of the Yangtze, in Nanjing, Mao's archfoe, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, holds court as the leader of the Republic of China and its Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government. But Mao believes that winning Beijing first will deal a mortal blow to the morale of the KMT. En route to what will be the future People's Republic's capital, he and his top lieutenants pause in a town that has been deserted by shopkeepers and merchants...
...seems improbable that Mao would actually have expressed such a reactionary sentiment at such a heady time. His was a movement driven by the cause of the exploited worker and peasant. Yet the scene appears in The Founding of a Republic, a slickly produced (though ponderously paced) state-backed film to commemorate this year's 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. (See pictures of China's 60th birthday bash...
...docudrama-style film begins in 1945 with the then temporarily allied communists and Nationalists celebrating the defeat of the Japanese and culminates with the declaration of the People's Republic by Mao at Beijing's Tiananmen Square. It purports to tell the true and full story of the tangled dance between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the KMT to forge a new, unified China. As you'd expect, many - but surprisingly not all - elements of the KMT are portrayed as malevolent and capricious, and the CCP justly triumphs (of course!). Yet Founding goes beyond routine propaganda. What's striking...
...Mao spent his lifetime trying to transform Chinese society in his utopian, socialist and revolutionary vision. He tried to create a "new socialist man" and an equitable society. His regime succeeded in providing the world's largest population with food to eat, housing and basic services. Social vices were eliminated, literacy was expanded, life expectancy increased and infant mortality decreased. These were no small achievements. But Mao's efforts to impose socialism had a deadening effect on urban and rural society alike, as political movements repeatedly harassed different groups of people...
...Crime and corruption remain serious problems, while cities struggle to provide basic services to the huge "floating population" of 100 million or so migrants. Income disparities (as measured by the Gini coefficient) are now approaching the highest in the world. China has again become a stratified society - just what Mao sought to eliminate. Still, given the unprecedented scale and nature of China's socioeconomic change over the past 30 years, the country's relative stability is commendable...