Beijing Futian Cemetery, the tomb of Jiang Qing (formerly Li Yunhe), wife of Mao Zedong.
Beijing Futian Cemetery, the grave of Jiang Qing, wife of China’s first leader Mao Zedong, was recently opened to the public, while the grave of reformist icon Zhao Ziyang was officially guarded, prompting netizens to worry about China’s political future. Some netizens posted a photo of a number of young people standing in the street holding Mao’s quotations during the Cultural Revolution, prompting people not to go back to the past.
During this year’s Qingming Festival, Cai Xia, a former professor at the CPC Central Party School who now lives in the United States, tweeted that the authorities had banned private tributes to Zhao Ziyang, but opened Jiang Qing’s tomb to the public, “making it clear who the CCP authorities fear and promote. Cai Xia retweeted a video of a friend from China visiting the tomb of former Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang on Qingming Festival, only to be stopped by plainclothes police.
Some people questioned why Jiang Qing’s tomb was opened to the public, but Zhao Ziyang was not allowed to pay his respects.
Writer Gao Valin also revealed on Twitter on Qingming Day, “Received a post – Qingming today. Strange thing in Beijing: many people pay tribute to Jiang Qing, but officials let it go; when they go to Zhao Ziyang’s tomb, they set up heavy barriers and strictly forbid anyone to approach.”
In an interview with Radio Free Asia this Wednesday, Zhang Jianping, a rights activist from Yixing, Jiangsu province, who lived through China’s Mao Zedong era, said, “This Qingming Festival, at the Futian Cemetery in Beijing, there are still many leftists going to pay their respects at Li Yunhe’s (Jiang Qing’s) tomb. This is the stereotype of thinking created by the divided environment, which is not a truly open and pluralistic society. Fountain Cemetery now has two well-known figures, one is Yang Jia and the other is Li Yunhe (Jiang Qing)”
Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing, formerly known as Li Yunhe, was sentenced by the Supreme Court to a suspended death sentence in 1983 and died in Qincheng Prison in 1991. But Zhao Ziyang was always referred to as a “comrade” within the Communist Party. According to public opinion, the above two incidents reflect the political attitude of the top echelon of the CCP. In response, some netizens have posted images online of a boycott of the Cultural Revolution, reminding people to be wary of its return. In the image, six young people dressed as students stand in the street holding a copy of Chairman Mao’s Quotations, with a lamp post beside them reading “Long live the Great Leader Mao.
Chinese netizens resist returning to the Maoist line with images from the Cultural Revolution. (Internet photo)
Most people in China would not want to go back to the Mao era
In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Beijing dissident Cha Jianguo said the Chinese public would not accept the Mao years: “Most of the people in the civil society resist going back to the Mao era. Private capitalists, individual households, peasants who have contracted to households, most intellectuals, including cadres, cadres going back to the Mao era will have to defeat the capitalist wing of the party and liquidate the Deng faction for capitalism. So most people in China will not want to return to the Mao era.”
Cha analyzed the political forces in China over the past forty years of “reform and opening up”. He said, “There are now three main factions in China, the Maoists, the Dengists and the liberals, and these three factions are opposed to each other. The Deng faction opposes both the Maoists and the liberals, but the Deng faction is more tolerant of the Maoists because they share the same basic point of Party leadership. And Zhao Ziyang’s late performance classified him in the liberal faction. The upper echelons are now slightly more tolerant of the Maoist faction, and there is no room for tolerance of the liberal faction.”
Mao Zedong and his wife Jiang Qing.
China’s National Film Bureau recently issued a Notice ordering theaters to show at least two officially designated films per week, such as “The Red Army of the Maiden,” “Little Soldier Zhang Ga” and “Children of Heroes,” red films reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution years.
Zhang Jianping, the first generation of Chinese migrant workers, told reporters, “You can’t mobilize a country to use administrative resources to propagate, which will easily cause people to lose their minds and some extreme ideas will come out of the cage. China has come to today, the economic development has been good, at this time should increase the efforts of reform and opening up, so that the people are exposed to a pluralistic society. Then there will be less social conflicts and less hate education.”
Zhang calls on the government to reform the political system and keep opening up, rather than imprisoning people’s minds.
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