Mao Zedong's descendent pays homage
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On the 34th anniversary of Mao Zedong's death, Mao's only adult male descendent, Mao Xinyu, spent September 9 both with his family and the media.
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Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square. |
In the morning Mao, together with his wife and 7-year-old son, paid homage to his grandfather, preserved in his crystal coffin in the Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square. In the afternoon, he gave a 30-minute speech on "The formation and development of Mao Zedong's thoughts on the military" with people.com.cn. He then held a one-hour online discussion answering questions from a Global Times reporter and other online participants.
Accompanied by two uniformed soldiers, his secretary and his wife Liu Bin, Major General Mao Xinyu arrived punctually for the speech, filmed and broadcast in real time from the online news platform. He wore a general's uniform and matched it with a pair of cloth shoes. He smiled as he entered the room. His guards were left downstairs.
The talk was an easy task for the 40-year-old, recently appointed a major general by the PLA, whose research subject during his doctorate was, not surprisingly, Mao Zedong's military strategies.
Mao proved to be an experienced speaker. He gave a fluent speech despite carrying no script with him. He quoted numbers or dates directly from his memory and was at ease with online feedback. He also had an awareness of timing and concluded his speech just in time for the facilitator to ask him a final question.
The final question picked by the moderator was "One person said he appreciated the occasion to learn from you about Mao Zedong. Mao was a great military strategist, but do you think he committed any mistakes?"
Previously stating his grandfather was "the greatest strategist in human history," Mao answered immediately. He first explained Mao Zedong himself had publicly admitted that he was not invincible, and then gave two examples of his grandfather's mistakes: One was the Tucheng Battle near the Chishui River during the Long March, and second was during the Korean War, Mao hadn't considered the cruel winter in North Korea carefully and the soldiers could have been better prepared for the bitter cold.
Mao has compared his grandfather to Sun Tzu, the great strategist of the Warring States period (476-221 BC) but claimed he was superior, because Mao has applied Marxism and the result was that "China's traditional military thoughts were greatly improved." He concluded that "Mao's military thoughts are far more superior than Sun Tzu's Art of War."
Mao also said that "Even though Mao Zedong declared in 1949 in Tiananmen that 'Today, the Chinese people stand up!' The world did not truly recognize (China) until after the Vietnam and Korean wars were over. "
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