Girl Climbs On Mao Zedong Statue, Angers Many Chinese

122 Comments

1. anna

   Monday, February 23, 2009 at 1:48 pm

   Mao deserves this，fuck him！！！He is a killer!!!fuck!!!

   Reply
2. smickno

   Monday, February 23, 2009 at 2:14 pm

   @ surprise

   I agree with 99% of what you said. But I don’t think China will go belly up in 10-20 years. China has learned its lesson, and she saw how the USSR imploded, so the Chinese government is treading very carefully. I read some serious journals which said that China will overtake Japan and the number one economy in Europe – and that’s Germany – by the year 2040. And India too.

   Of course, that’s up to you or anyone to believe or not. I was reading a few days ago some US newpapers dated “1968″ and they were writing about what life would be like 40 years on ie. in the year 2008. At that time, the writing seemed realistic, but now with the benefit of hindsight, I found it to be the most idiotic science fiction I had ever read.

   The way I see it, China is adopting a free market system within a socialist system, and PeterYang described it best when he wrote:

   “that the true power of society comes from division of labor and economic liberalization, that a government shall act only as a regulative entity and grant its citizens full freedom to create wealth under rule of law, with social justice.”

   Just to digress a little…If China allowed multi-party system – at least for now – she will have a problem 1,000 times worse than the recent Bangkok airport news. There is no way for China to allow every 同志 to have the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of….whatever whatever.

   Instead of following the western model, she decided to follow aspects of the Singaporean model, a free and open economy, with fiscal incentives for foreign investments, but mind you, with a very paternalistic government which plans everything for its people from cradle to grave. Sorry to hurt the feelings of western democracies who may think that only THEY are right about how governments should be organised and run, but China thinks otherwise. She prefers to learn from a successful Asian model.

   Reply
   • Kai

     Monday, February 23, 2009 at 3:57 pm

     smickno, I agree with what you say in the first 60% of your comment. In fact, I think China actually already surpassed Germany as the #3 economic power in the world. Next up would be #2 Japan and then #1 America. It’ll take awhile.

     LoL about the 1968 stuff, that’s very true.

     As for your digression, I’ve heard the China-Singapore comparison before, but it is a rather dubious given the differences in sheer size and complexity. While I think China would like to take a few lessons from Singapore, I don’t think China is actively following “the Singapore model.” What works for Singapore just won’t work for China, and the rampant corruption in China is just the easiest reminder of that.

     Like many others, I actually do not believe China’s government is following any one model or has a model of its own at all. I think they (China’s leaders/government) are more or less stumbling their way through, responding as best they can to problems as they crop up.

     Also keep in mind that it is pretty vogue to argue that China’s economic development is rather reminiscent of America in the past, as opposed to little Singapore.

     Singapore IS a successful Asian country, but China is not Singapore and I think China knows that well enough not to be emulating Singapore with any serious hopes of achieving similar results. Western democracy advocates do have their panties in a bunch because China refuses to listen to them, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say China “chose” to “follow” Singapore. What do you think?

     Reply
     • Peteryang

       Monday, February 23, 2009 at 4:49 pm

       I agree that multi-party for China right now is impractical, and could lead to civil war between political rivalries. That’s why I was catious enought to follow “freedom” by “create wealth”, not “politically organize”.

       As for Singapore, China DID want to borrow its model, but it turned out it’s also unrealistic for China because China is a freaking huge country with numerous complicated and entangling issues and the CCP, unlike People’s Action Party, cannot rid corruptions and be proactive in leading the economy and society. To be more specific, I believe CCP’s top leaders know what they are doing but the local governments who are supposed to get the job done, do not.

       Therefore size of a nation is a decisive factor in its ability to maintain a stable system, because it’s MUCH easier to reach consensus amongst a very small number of population. That should explain why Taiwan and Japan could copy the western democracy without too much hassle.

       Reply
     • Peteryang

       Monday, February 23, 2009 at 5:16 pm

       and as for Surprise’s claim of China drying up, sorry it aint gona happen. In fact I don’t think the Chinese government wants everyone to be on par with American or European standard of living, and when it’s about to reach the threshold of blowing up, a natural force will come into play to reset everything, e.g. starvation, epidemics outbreak, wars… and then people will start all over agin.

       And who know what the future holds for China, and the world, a metoer might fall tomorrow and erase us all, save the efforts of civilization.

       Reply
3. pervertt

   Monday, February 23, 2009 at 4:38 pm

   smickmo, I think China under Deng would have adopted their current model of government, regardless of the advice given to them by other government leaders. With due respect, there are many who would NOT regard the Singaporean model of government as being either successful or sustainable. The Singaporean model can be attributed to the vision and force of will of just one man – Lee Kuan Yew. As with Mao, another paternalistic despot, that model will change with his passing.

   I think it was JK Galbraith who pointed out that democracy is an inevitable consequence of rising living standards. Despots of any persuasion, paternalistic or otherwise, would be well advised to heed this advice.

   Reply
4. smickno

   Monday, February 23, 2009 at 5:39 pm

   @Kai, Peter, pervert.

   All of you are right and wrong. The 改革开放 was a result of Deng’s visit to Singapore after he saw how a small country with a predominantly Chinese immigrant population succeeded with a modified British Westminster Parliamentary System operating under the iron rule of Lee Kuan Yew. From pictures of Singapore taken in the 1920s, Deng had expected to see a very 4th world city much like one of those most undeveloped small towns in China. But after his visit, he was nothing but all praises for Singapore.

   In the years that followed, he got various officials to go to Singapore to study her system, and to see what could be adopted. Not all of what Singapore was/is doing
   can be applied as you rightly pointed out: things like the sheer size of China’s population, the problem of getting a vast number to people to come to a consensus, and so and so forth.

   Still, Deng was not going to adopt the American system, never mind that he knew China would undergo SOME of what the US went through before, when you are dealing with a large population of people. As to whether the Chinese government from Deng to now has got any kind of model of government at all, or if they are actually groping their way through (feeling the stones to cross the river as Deng said), we’ll never know. We can only guess that they do have, but also face huge problems in implementation/execution.

   Personally, I think that the Beijing government really and clearly wants to do the right thing for the Chinese people. I don’t think Wen Jiaobao is just a nice grandfatherly face put up there for public relations purposes, but that he and the rest really cared for his people. The problems lie with the less than stellar and often corrupt government officials at the provincial/municipal levels. As the Chinese say, the Emperor is far away and there are high mountains shielding us, so we can ….well, I can write all I want because I am now far away from the Emperor. 你奈我何？.

   Reply
   • Fauna

     Monday, February 23, 2009 at 8:35 pm

     smickno/troll is from Singapore. Maybe that is why he thinks China is copy Singapore. He sound like some Americans who think all good things are copy from them.

     Reply
     • Mike

       Sunday, March 1, 2009 at 8:43 pm

       I think also quite a few Chinese think everything good in the world came from China and everything bad came from somewhere else.

       Reply
       • Fike2308

         Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 1:45 pm

         I get that impression too.

         Reply
5. smickno

   Monday, February 23, 2009 at 5:53 pm

   @pervett

   This one is especially for you.

   Deng was just as paternalistic as Mao, and he definitely intended to remain so. He would over his dead body not adopt the western two party, or multi party system.

   But he knew that China had to open up, and thought Singapore with her paternalistic leader, using a free and open market system, would make for an instructive case study. At that time, Singapore was what Deng wanted: remain paternalistic, rule with an iron fist, open China up to foreign investments.

   I am not sure if the Singapore system will crash after Lee, but they are saying that they are getting/got the system insitutionalised, like in the US, rather than depending on any one person.

   Reply
   • PeterScriabin

     Monday, July 26, 2010 at 6:16 am

     I too was grateful for this information. Didn’t know Deng was specifically influenced by observation of Singapore before the opening-up announcements. It sounds highly plausible.

     Was rather shocked (in 3 quite different ways) by the moderator’s comment on your post.

     Reply
6. FangYao

   Monday, February 23, 2009 at 6:27 pm

   please no more Singapore,
   economy……everything is about money….there is no way out
   if china really wants to win the world’s respect. i am sure it wont be the cheap clothes and low paid workers, it is his own unique culture.
   but thanks Mao there are not so much left…..

   Reply
7. Peteryang

   Monday, February 23, 2009 at 6:48 pm

   thaks smick for the history, I didn’t know it until now.

   No Chinese leaders have been willing to give up the CCP rule, stability is one thing but more importantly, a vast vested interests prohibits him to do so.

   One problem though, with China’s authoritarianism, is that it suppresses innovation. From my observation, the more educated and free-thinking a person is, the more likely he or she will be critical of the political system, and vice versa. This is what I call an “entangling” issue because I see no way out.

   Reply
8. pervertt

   Monday, February 23, 2009 at 7:14 pm

   smickmo, Deng was more pragmatist than a paternal figure. Not for him the personality cult espoused by Mao and other socialist leaders. Deng couldn’t give a stuff what people thought of him. He was result driven and he was prepared to sacrifice principle (in other cases, a whole lot more) to achieve his goals.

   Having read LKY’s autobiography, I remain a little skeptical of the his claimed influence over Chinese leadership. No doubt Deng would have been more than a little intrigued at the prospect of a predominantly Chinese city-state doing relatively well in hostile region. He may have been impressed by the outward results of economic liberalisation. But to think that tiny Singapore served as some sort of model for the government of China – that would have taken things too far. Deng would only do things HIS way.

   As for Singapore’s political future, that would be an interesting topic for discussion in its own right.

   Going back to the main topic, I find it refreshing that younger Chinese treat Mao with a little irreverence. I don’t think climbing all over his statue in a theme park amounts to total disrespect. Now, if they could only do something about that huge portrait of Mao at the entrance to the Forbidden City. That place has seen far too many emperors ….

   Reply
9. smickno

   Monday, February 23, 2009 at 10:59 pm

   @Fauna

   You jumped to conclusion and said I am from Singapore, simply because I wrote something about China learning from Singapore. Oh my god! And recently, you must have assumed that I was another guy attacking Kai telling him (he thinks)he was too smart…until I clarified that I am me and that fellow came out to make peace with Kai. If I were that fellow, I would have continued to troll Kai because THAT is smickno.

   My work takes me places and you will never find out where I come from, chimate. Good try. By the way, I know your real identity and where you are located, eh. But I shan’t reveal it here since I have better sense of professional ethics than you, who abused an implied fiduciary duty that you owe to everyone here to not divulge any information about commenter’s particulars.

   Reply
10. smickno

    Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 12:21 am

    @Fangyao

    You are right to say that a country’s attractiveness comes from its culture, at least to those people who go there for holidays. For example, I went to Cambodia and Vietnam recently precisely because I wanted to have a first hand experience of what I read about in the internet.

    I know some trolls will say China is attractive because a lot of its women are good for fucking, but that’s another story.

    But the reality in China is that the society is now controlled by money. In 10 years, Mao deculturated the people. Following that was the post 1980 generation， in particular those living in the big cities, which are like strawberries, easily fractured and unable to 吃苦。

    Reply
    • whatever

      Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 7:09 am

      I don’t where you are from.The only thing thing I wanna say women in your place are good to score too.

      Reply
11. Mike

    Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 12:25 am

    I’m guessing, just maybe, she gets reports about IP address.

    Reply
    • PeterScriabin

      Monday, July 26, 2010 at 6:26 am

      Interesting. I’d noticed I cannot post on ChinaSmack when in a VPN session. Makes one grateful for dynamic IP assignment (most ISPs).

      Reply
12. EmperorNong

    Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 1:33 am

    Chinese people are like mushrooms,keep them in the dark, make them feel warm and feed them tons of Sh**. Of course the place has developed amazingly, it was amazingly backward in the first place, its all relative.

    The latest is that they are moaning about two little bronze heads taken from some statues when the “evil foreigners” burned the palace of people that had their population in rags with zero way up, kinda like today isn’t it?

    Well here’s some BIG NEWS, very many innocent women and children (including tens of thousands of Chinese) were butchered during the boxer rebellion by uneducated thugs, the foreign legation was besieged and again people murdered, your people killed tiny children, you must be so proud! wow what a civilized history ye have.

    So don’t cry or winge about statue heads and minor shit like people climbing on the satutes of butchers.

    Don’t forget, Chinese isn’t a race, its a nationality and your history books are less than one fifth of those being read around the world, therefore the majority of the planet know what your people do and how you are afraid of those that do it.

    Funny national anthem “we aren’t slaves” yada yada, oh yes you are and the sad thing is, you don’t even know it.

    Reply
13. Joe #2

    Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 4:38 am

    I honestly don’t see what all the fuss is over. If I saw someone, even a Chinese person, climb onto the Lincoln memorial I’d be more worried that they would get hurt than about any “disrespect” to the statue. Granted, I myself would never climb statues like that, but whatever.

    And I like Lincoln a lot more than I like Mao.

    Reply
14. lenovo

    Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 5:46 am

    To Surprise,
    In your post, you have a assumption that the living standard of US people will be kept forever, which is not very practical. Once the US’s economic declines, your living standard will start to fall as well.

    So if US’s living standard falls by 50% and China’s living standard increases by 50%, then there might be enough resource for us to enjoy a more fair world.

    Reply
15. Celkian

    Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 6:45 am

    Levono, why would you think China’s rise would be accompanied by a fall elsewhere? How is has worked so far is that the developed world experiences very slow growth and the developing world experiences very fast growth. Economist would forecast that sort of growth for China but they wouldn’t forecast it the other way around. Some sort of disaster like that would only severely slow down China’s rise.

    Reply
    • Kai

      Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 11:52 am

      I don’t think he’s trying to say it HAS to be accompanied by a fall elsewhere but such an economic scenario is not unheard of.

      For example, the Chinese government has been suppressing China’s consumer purchasing power (and thus living standards) for a long time now. It has done so in part through a monetary policy designed to encourage economic growth through an export manufacturing economy. This export manufacturng economy has thus far generated jobs for China’s mass of unskilled laborers, and it is critically important for domestic social and political stability that China’s massive population be employed. The overall stability of the nation is valued as more important by the government than the average living standards of the domestic population.

      However, the current economic crisis (really, a necessary readjustment as Peteryang says below) has resulted in reduced foreign demand for China. Americans, long the “consumer of last resort” for the world, are now unable to consume as much as they once did. This, in turn, affects China’s export economy. That’s why so many Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Korean factories that used to produce low-value goods are shuttering and laying off millions of Chinese workers, which is not good for the Chinese government in terms of maintaining social stability.

      So, the Chinese government is now trying to stimulate domestic demand to replace lost foreign demand by promoting domestic consumption. This is done in a desperate hope that it will save jobs for many failing manufacturing industries. A by-product of doing this will be a rise in the living standards of the domestic population. Of course, the gap between Chinese living standards and American or European living standards is still huge, but it is definitely conceivable that this current crisis will bring the two at least a bit closer together if Chinese living standards rise faster than foreign living standards that are either dropping or at least rising less quickly than before.

      If I interpreted your comment correctly, I think you agree that rates of growth will change relatively between countries, but you just don’t think economists would predict falling growth or (heh) “negative growth” for a country, right? I dunno, I’ve heard a lot of gloomy predictions that Americans will experience a painful drop in the living standards they once afforded through the bubble.

      Finally, I do not think “some sort of disaster like that” would ONLY severely slow down CHINA’s rise. It really depends on the specifics of that disaster and how each country is affected and equipped to deal with it. We cannot discount factors such as China possessing a lot of money and the possibly untapped potential of its huge domestic market. It may have previously chosen to grow through export, but it doesn’t mean China can only grow through export and is thus at the complete mercy of foreign demand. What do you think?

      Reply
16. Peteryang

    Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 8:41 am

    there has to be a large-scale war to reduce a nation’s strength by 50%, but in that case, perhaps every nation will suffer.

    this is the real world, not some science fiction, and the crisis is right now at its worst, yet we only see some people laid off and banks nationalized and that’s it. I’ve never considered the crisis a big deal, not for China, not for the world.

    and ya know what, the crisis is actually a good thing, it drives the civilization toward a more secure future in terms of economy, it’s a lesson we have to learn sooner or later, from the point of grand history, it’s the inevitable turning point.

    Reply
17. Mike

    Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 9:34 pm

    Too Yellow… if I had just written “didn’t destroy centuries of European American culture” I would still have been correct. Washington was not a powerful leader during the French and Indian Wars, just a Captain I believe. So, even though he was certainly part of persecuting and killing native Americans and destroying their culture, a very small part, he had little or nothing to do with the creation of Indian policy or the direction of war at that time. Later when he became prez, now that’s a different story. However, this argument fails in that to the New Americans, the Native Americans were like citizens of another country, if they were even considered full-fledged people at all, not really citizens of the United States. So, I think the comparison trivializes both… just as those arguments comparing Mao to Hitler do.

    Reply
18. Mike

    Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 9:37 pm

    omg… your jumps from Washington to the Vietnam war are amazing. Why not be talking about Qinshihuang and jump to Jiang Jieshi according to your logic?

    Reply
19. Joe Chen

    Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 12:40 pm

    I am Chinese and I studdied Chinese history for a long time…

    Mao was responsible for more than 70 million of his own people, more than Hitler, Napoleon and Pol Pot put together…

    Mao was a primal illiterate peasant driven by blood, vice and greed, with no sense of social values. Like any despicable tyrants, he was a murderer and sent millions of people to the frontline only to forward and serve his own deviant ambitions. He killed his own under the cover of the so-called “bamboo curtain” to hide the genocide of his brothers and sisters.

    He brought nothing good to our beautiful country except devastation, misery, poverty, famines and filled our rivers with Chinese blood.

    There is absolutely nothing laudable in Mao’s life, writtings, ethics and political views. There is absolutely nothing to be praised and be proud of. He is a shame in our thousand’s of years history.

    Mao should not be sat on; he should be shat on.

    Reply
    • Fike2308

      Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 1:39 pm

      Ahh, Joe I wish more Chinese people thought like you.

      I think you’d make a better chairman than Mao.

      Reply
    • korean_guy

      Friday, May 14, 2010 at 12:14 am

      I totally agree…Mao’s great leap forward was really a great leap backwards. What Mao did for the China was a tragedy bringing cancer communism into China: communism not only does not work but it breeds evil. I hope the people of China will rise up and rid themselves all goons who are in the top leadership and build a better future for China.

      Reply
20. Joe Chen

    Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    … Mao was responsible for more than 70 million of his own people, more than Hitler, Napoleon and Pol Pot put together…

    Reply
21. Joe Chen

    Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 1:01 pm

    … Mao was responsible for the death of more than 70 million of his own people, more than Hitler, Napoleon and Pol Pot put together…

    Reply
    • Fike2308

      Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 1:08 pm

      He definetly gets the GOLD medal.

      Reply
22. charles

    Monday, March 2, 2009 at 4:15 am

    i thought it was changsha and it really was. keep up the good work, i like the site

    Reply
23. Harold P

    Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    Chairman Mao’s shoulders are big, he can handle her.

    I can see how some can be up-set, but wasn’t it
    Mao the one who liked women to the point of death?

    It will be interesting when Woman’s rights start
    to surface in grater China. “All we need is love …”
    will be there slogan and song. It is interesting
    that America needs China in this time period.
    China will need America soon if there children have
    anything to say about it. I wish for stronger ties,
    there is so much to be exchanged at a people to
    people level.

    Harold P.
    Mojave CA. USA

    Reply
24. jamie

    Monday, May 18, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    i’m sure the real mao would have loved it

    Reply
25. Steve

    Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 12:12 pm

    Ha Ha.. Awesome!!

    Reply
26. Fike2308

    Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 1:06 pm

    1st reaction = I want to make love to that girl.

    Reply
    • David Garrett

      Tuesday, November 2, 2010 at 1:34 pm

      Get in line buddy.

      Reply
27. cs11222wee

    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 7:29 am

    He deserve that.

    Reply
28. the DISH

    Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 5:47 pm

    for most chinese people, what Chairman Mao did was ‘GODLIKE’ almost a savior to them

    but unforunately they do not see the big picture which is that MAO only did what he did in CHINA, and on a global scale, what he did was flawed and blinded. confining china to itself and refusing international help only breeds the people like you see on the comments, uneducated people who ‘respect’ / ‘love’ this MAO guy too Excessively that they lose all reason

    what the girl did was only a step toward the future, a world united, a world free to everyone

    again what we are seeing today, and the very REASON THIS WEBSITE WAS BORN is the amazing TRANSITION from communist and old CHINA into a NEW ERA of global unity.

    Reply
29. korean_guy

    Friday, May 14, 2010 at 12:09 am

    I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Mao Zedong, but this is low-class behavior.

    Reply
30. Professor Sillypants

    Friday, May 14, 2010 at 1:16 pm

    That statue would sink like a stone in the Yangtze.

    Reply
31. Ryan

    Friday, September 24, 2010 at 2:13 am

    Didn’t he kill like 75 million of “his people”. This guy was than Hitler IMHO. The statue should be torn down along with the others. The “culture revolution” destroyed chinese culture! New China was created by the british for the purpose of creating slave soldiers to fight in WW3. It was planned over 100 years ago and seems to be on schedule. poor sheeple, will you ever learn to recognize propaganda and tyranny? Just don’t fight the governments wars and there will be alot more peace. Oh yea, F*ck the Federal government. that is all

    Reply
32. MAOCUNT

    Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 7:08 am

    People like these were the product of Mao’s program to deprive China off any moral values to ensure the success of his rule. This is indeed Karma.

    Reply
33. David Garrett

    Tuesday, November 2, 2010 at 1:33 pm

    I honestly think disgracing history’s greatest mass-murder is an awesome idea. Wish I was there!

    Reply
34. Senor Boogie Woogie

    Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    In life, Mao never minded to have his head between a woman’s legs.

    Reply
35. Intranet

    Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 3:56 am

    Mao ZeDong’s policies led to executions, purges, and famine where 30+ million Chinese were murdered or died slowly of starvation…which is 3x the number the Japanese killed during WW2. Yet many Chinese still worship him like a deity. Pathetic.

    Reply