Two bloggers fond of covering Chinese Communist Party malfeasance – Peking Duck and Gweilo Diaries – are both crowing over Hu Jintao calling Mao Zedong ‘the pride of the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese people and the Chinese race’.
Sorry fellas: Hu’s waffling about Mao does not mean anything at all.
It is as meaningless as George Bush’s good ol’ boy Texan act, when we all know he is an East Coast Brahmin. It helps to be cynical if you want to understand Chinese politics. It also helps to be cynical if you want to understand American politics. Ask George Bush about government spending. Ask Hu Jintao about Marxism. Try to find an honest answer.
Peking Duck’s post about Hu Jintao being a Maoist is here, Gweilo Diaries’ is here.