Mao Tse-tung and China's Modern Politics

I finished my college entrance exam in the winter of my third year of high school and stoped by a bookstore to by a book called [THE LONG MARCH] written by Harrison E. Salisbury, an American journalist. Originally, I did not study at school and read various books, but in winter when I was a senior in high school, I could afford to be accepted by the world. And I often read [THE LONG MARCH]. I was in a very bad environment but the book fostered my strong will.

I was not interested in the revolution and I was interested in the process of the long march. I was young and lacked expression, but I knew that trying did not bring a world that I wanted unconditionally. So did the long march. The great willpower of the Communist Party of China has been exercised. But soon the dark world came. The Cultural Revolution and the eradication of sparrows were destructive events caused by ignorant willpower.

The problem was solved by wise figures such as Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai, but as long as the rituals that deify Mao Zedong exist in China, the spirit of China has always been at stake. The revolutionary spirit was also in Western society. The British Revolution, the American War of independence, the French Revolution, and the Korean Donghak Movement were historic events that occurred in common against the decadence of feudalism.

In common, the West and the East have moved to a better world against the ancient regime.

The issue of applying China’s security law to Hong Kong will be very different between Hong Kong’s citizens and mainland Chinese. Like North Korea, China will have a trauma to imperialist aggression. Hong Kong was British-controlled and Hong Kong citizens were planted with democratic values of Western Europe. But the Chinese must have decided that Hong Kong should be quickly Chineseized because it is a product of imperialist aggression.

Historically, Chinese ideas (中華思想 / China-centered thought) in the minds of the Chinese people were to exert more influence than cool judgment if they had a chance one day. Deng Xiaoping, who has a very cautious and meticulous personality, emphasized the 韜光養晦(He waits patiently without revealing his talent) with the intention of not feeling up and steadily achieving its purpose. He tried to stifle the excessive enthusiasm of the people. Deng Xiaoping, who has spent a long time of patience, must have thought about relativity. It’s like the idea that when I become strong and show my desire to dominate, my opponents must unite.

One day I wrote that Mao Tse-tung had read so many books. But the nature of reading did not accord with the ideals of the Chinese Communist Party.

Mao Tse-tung was an incomparable reading maniac, but he rarely read foreign literary works except for a few famous books like [La Dame aux camelias / 椿姬]. He also did not read China’s modern literature. He did not read further about economic management, especially concerning socialized production management in foreign countries. This has brought about a great negative effect in socialist construction, says Feng Shensz. It was the classics of China that he loved, and in his later years, especially [資治通監].

- [Mao Tse-tung and Zhou Enlai] by Susumu Yabuki -

Mao Tse-tung is said to have always read [史記] hard even on the battlefield. Chinese classics contain the consciousness of feudal society and always have the emperor as the main character. Just as there is an emperor in the story he read a lot, Mao Zedong wanted to be an emperor.

Ten years after I graduated from high school, I experienced another mental distress. At that time I endured reading the song of the [Battle Hymn of China] written by Agnes Smedley, an American woman who served in the Red Army during the Long March, and [History de la France] written by Andre Maurois. When the field of vision broadened, the real world’s worries seemed small. Nowadays, Western society has achieved the purpose of the revolution and China is still lacking. These days China is not the same as the days when Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai ruled, but the days when Mao Tse-tung ruled. The Chinese government says it will not allow other countries to interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs. Clearly, it is not China that has had the best influence on my life.