{"id":1822,"date":"2026-09-05T04:40:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T04:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=1822"},"modified":"2026-09-05T04:40:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T04:40:37","slug":"in-china-you-go-to-prison-for-slandering-historys-greatest-killer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=1822","title":{"rendered":"In China You Go to Prison for \u2018Slandering\u2019 History\u2019s Greatest Killer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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M<\/span>ao Zedong, known as the \u201cGreat Helmsman,\u201d was the most important founder of the People\u2019s Republic of China. Nevertheless, after his death in 1976, the Chinese Communist Party tolerated criticism of his legacy. Even the CCP admitted that Mao had made mistakes, though it still claimed that he was 70 percent correct.<\/p>\n

Read more September Vacation Tribes<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this minimal honesty in government has since disappeared. Chinese artist Gao Zhen, a 70-year-old permanent U.S. resident who emigrated to America in 2022, has been convicted of \u201cslandering China\u2019s heroes and martyrs,\u201d namely Mao. Detained while visiting the PRC two years ago, Gao has been sentenced to three years in prison. His wife has been prohibited from leaving as a matter of \u201cnational security.\u201d His young son cannot return home without his parents.<\/p>\n

Gao\u2019s crime was caricaturing the Red Emperor, a veritable madman responsible for mass death and poverty. Mao ruled the world\u2019s most populous nation for nearly three decades, inflicting upon its people such infamies as the \u201cGreat Leap Forward\u201d and \u201cGreat Proletarian Cultural Revolution,\u201d along with multiple lesser atrocities. Although casualty estimates approaching 100 million lost lives are probably excessive, the actual numbers still boggle. R.J. Rummel, author of Death by Government<\/em>, figured more than 35 million dead. Yang Jisheng, who chronicled the catastrophic government-created famine in which his father starved to death, figures that catastrophe alone killed 36 million Chinese. The Black Book of Communism<\/em> estimates Mao\u2019s death roll at about 65 million. Other guesstimates fall in between. It is true that Mao did not intend all<\/em> of these deaths. Still, Chairman Mao, as he was commonly known, likely killed more people than any other man or woman in human history. It took a perverse mix of ability and effort to slaughter so prodigiously.<\/p>\n

China is not the only nation in which a brutal and cruel ruler created untold horror and hardship both domestically and internationally. However, in most gruesome cases, succeeding generations repudiated the tyrant\u2019s leadership. Adolf Hitler committed suicide amid the rubble of Berlin, his soon-to-be-captured capital city. After dying peacefully, Joseph Stalin was repudiated, and his body was removed from a place of honor in Lenin\u2019s tomb in Moscow\u2019s Red Square. Pol Pot, architect of Cambodia\u2019s \u201cKilling Fields,\u201d and Romania\u2019s Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu, a notorious crackpot even by communist standards, were reviled in death. Imperial Japan\u2019s Premier Hideki Tojo was executed for war crimes, though Emperor Hirohito was excused from his likely responsibility for political reasons. Few think of the lost Ottoman Empire, let alone War Minister Ismail Enver Pasha, most responsible for the mass slaughter of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks during World War I. Who today even remembers murderous dictators like Ethiopia\u2019s Haile Mariam and Uganda\u2019s Idi Amin Dada?<\/p>\n

In contrast, no one visiting the PRC can avoid Mao\u2019s memory. His image adorns the currency. His portrait hangs in Tiananmen Square on the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Moreover, his mausoleum dominates the plaza and draws some 5000 visitors every day. His birthplace in Hunan Province is a favorite tourist location, and Mao tchotchke is widely available. Most importantly, his role as China\u2019s principal revolutionary and nation-builder is celebrated in school textbooks, public museums, and popular culture.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Chinese who lived through the horrors of Mao\u2019s misrule are not fooled by continuing CCP propaganda. During the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, three protestors defaced Mao\u2019s portrait. One was a bus driver \u2014 a common worker rather than an exalted intellectual \u2014 who, as a result, served 10 years in prison. After he escaped to Thailand, he observed: \u201cAn increasing number of Chinese, I mean overseas Chinese, are more aware of the autocratic, totalitarian, and violent nature of the Chinese Communist Party.\u201d(RELATED: Tiananmen Square Anniversary Reminds Us of Freedom Lost)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the bloody Tiananmen crackdown, some space long remained for discussing Mao\u2019s legacy. The PRC was authoritarian, but its controls loosened. Unfortunately, General Secretary and President Xi Jinping has since turned into the reincarnation of Mao, at least in terms of suppressing opinion and debate. One of his more infamous acts was the 2018 law to protect the reputation of \u201cheroes and martyrs.\u201d The measure was \u201cintroduced so the country and the people forever remember the sacrifices made by the nation\u2019s heroes and martyrs for the good of the country. The whole of society is required to learn from and defend the nation\u2019s heroes and martyrs. It bans the defamation of heroes and martyrs, and any distorting or diminishing of their deeds. According to the law, people who defame the country\u2019s heroes and martyrs, or sully their reputations and honor, will face administrative or criminal punishments. The law also stipulates that publicity and education about the deeds and spirit of the nation\u2019s heroes and martyrs should be incorporated into the national education system.\u201d The CCP is so serious about the rule by, not of, law that it applied the measure retroactively against acts committed years, even decades, in the past.<\/p>\n

Gao long targeted past CCP rule, especially Mao. Reported by the New York Times<\/em>: \u201cIn the early 2000s, he and his younger brother Gao Qiang held\u00a0secret exhibitions in Beijing\u00a0and got away with taking on taboo topics like the 1966-76 decade of political turmoil known as the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in the death of their father, and the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. Known as the Gao brothers, the duo were seen as cultural ambassadors to the West, representing a China that was more willing to face its past.\u201d<\/p>\n

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However, after Xi steadily regressed to the CCP\u2019s more repressive past, both Gaos emigrated to the United States. Unfortunately, despite warnings that Gao Zhen was at risk, he returned with his wife and son to visit his ill mother-in-law. In August 2024, \u201calmost three months after he had returned to China, more than 30 police stormed Mr. Gao\u2019s art studio in Sanhe City in Hebei Province, near Beijing. Four of the officers grabbed Ms. Zhao, forcing her and their son into the kitchen. She tried to comfort their son as they watched officers pin her husband to a couch and handcuff him.\u201d Since then he has been in detention. Even when the verdict is prearranged, it seems, trials take longer in China than in America. Last week he was finally convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, for art created almost two decades before<\/em> passage of the law under which he was punished.<\/p>\n

Explained the Times<\/em>: \u201cMr. Gao was arrested for three provocative sculptures of Mao Zedong that he made with his brother. In one, the revolutionary is depicted with breasts and a Pinocchio nose; in another, a group of Chairman Maos with guns prepare to execute Jesus Christ. The third, called \u2018Mao\u2019s Guilt,\u2019 portrays the former leader, who was responsible for years of famine and upheaval, kneeling in repentance.\u201d Insulting though these exhibits might seem, they are only minor retribution for mass killing and immiseration of the Chinese people.<\/p>\n

China is an extraordinary country, with a venerated and ancient culture and an entrepreneurial and creative people. Their government freed them to succeed economically when it finally abandoned Marxism as part of \u201csocialism with Chinese characteristics.\u201d However, Leninism continues to reign, stronger than ever under Xi, who is determined that the CCP will firmly rule China and that he will firmly rule the CCP.<\/p>\n

The Chinese people will be free only when they are allowed to confront the legacy of the communist party and especially of Mao Zedong. He is more responsible than anyone else for creating what has become the modern Chinese state, though he would not recognize the result. Unfortunately, the Chinese people remain in intellectual and political bondage. Only their chains today are made of silver and gold rather than iron.<\/p>\n

Someday China will be free. Then the Chinese people will finally be able to bury Mao and his terrifying legacy.<\/p>\n

READ MORE from Doug Bandow:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Virtue of Judicial Independence<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hong Kong\u2019s Chief Executive. Chief Enforcer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Forgotten Christians of Egypt<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of <\/strong><\/em>Foreign Follies: America\u2019s New Global Empire<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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