Chinese want ‘Mao’ to project power on high seas
In two polls this month, more people wanted China's first aircraft carrier to be named after the controversial leader than any other option.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer 06.22.09
It’s funny how talk about a ship’s name can reveal unusual things about the people doing the talking.
In this case it is Chinese Internet users talking about China’s aircraft carrier. Or, rather, China’s putative aircraft carrier because it has not been built yet, nor have the authorities yet even acknowledged plans to build one.
But that has not stopped Internet portals here from doing a bit of wishful thinking, and inviting visitors to their sites to have their say. And a rather disturbing say it is, too, even if the polling samples are small.
Neutral names, such as Beijing or Shanghai, don’t appeal to people at all. More popular are the names of islands, such as Taiwan, Diaoyu, or Nansha.
This is awkward, though, because what they all have in common is that they are disputed territory. Taiwan is de facto independent, Diaoyu is known as Senkaku in Japan, and Nansha is better known as the Spratlys, a sprinkle of islands claimed not only by China, but also the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei.
On the other hand, naming an aircraft carrier – which would be the jewel of China’s naval crown – for a disputed island fits well with the general principles that respondents to the polls thought should guide the choice.
Thirty percent thought the name should “present China’s comprehensive national strength.” Only 6.9 percent wanted to “avoid the impression of a military threat.”
But which was the runaway favorite in two polls conducted earlier this month? Mao Zedong.
He may have been a monster to you and me. The number of Chinese who died as a result of his policies runs into the tens of millions. But to many, if not most people here, Mao remains – for all his faults, even when they are admitted – the father of the nation; his memory is endowed with supernatural powers.
Indeed, his name alone “has deterrent force,” believe some of the respondents, according to the International Herald Leader, a daily paper owned by the official Xinhua news agency, which commissioned one of the polls.
But there could be a drawback. “Aircraft carriers are used in battle, and they could get damaged,” the Herald Leader points out. “If that happened to a carrier named Mao Zedong, it might hurt ordinary people’s feelings.”
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3. claudia elder | 06.23.09
The CSM is still a great newspaper. That gives me a sense of security. Thank you for your commitment. Claudia
4. fuming | 06.23.09
Mr. Ford, Mao is not a controversial leader, at least not in eyes of the Chinese people. Mao is a monster to you and some of your audience not because of bad things he had done, but because you guys are so gullible to the so called “impartial” western media and are incapable of independent thinking. One billion people on this planet is having a better life because of Mao. With three or four more such monsters, we will have a much better planet.
5. paul | 06.23.09
They haven’t built an aircraft carrier yet because they haven’t stole the plans for it from the united states yet.
6. taxtime | 06.23.09
Fuming, Mao is considered a monster in the west not because “[us] guys are gullible” but because he was responsible for the deaths of millions over the course of his time in power (do a search for the Great Chinese Famine, and the Cultural Revolution to see a couple of his most noteworthy atrocities). You credit him for improving the standard of living in China, however, the economic reforms that have proved so successful in present day China had nothing to do with Mao. They were put in place by his successors starting in the mid 80s, eight years after Mao’s death. We’ve had much more than four such monsters in modern history - Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, etc., and it’s hard to credit any of them with making this a “much better planet”.
7. Sayid | 06.23.09
Fuming, there is certainly a great deal of bias in the Western media, but Mao ruled China like a giant version of North Korea. It was Deng Xiaoping who allowed the Chinese people to have a better life.
8. Po Lu Ting | 06.23.09
Fuming:
One billion people on this planet are not having a better life because of Mao Zedong, they are having a better life thanks to POST-Mao reforms. Mao Zedong was the greatest mass-murderer in human history…making Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin look like they knocked over a Seven Eleven. Mao was directly or indirectly responsible for the murder of 49-78,000,000 people. If you want to idolize someone for elevating China’s starving masses, you might want to name your carrier Deng Xiaoping. Do some research and discover the real Mao.
9. Charlie | 06.23.09
westerners can monopolise the dialogue here……but u cannot monopolise what 1 billion Chinese think of Mao…….
FYI, mao is a Chinese hero……that is good enough for us Chinese……
10. kanwi | 06.24.09
More people died under Mao’s 25 years as a peace time leader that all who died in the two world wars. Yes… an aircraft carrier would be a good symbol of the current regime. I wonder why Deng does not appeal? He really did change the direction China was heading in and why Chinese society is what it is today. Kanwi
11. Mao forever | 06.24.09
Let me try to give you a quick a list why Chinese love Mao:
1) Since 1840, China was invaded and divided by Western powers and Japan. The old Chinese nation was on the edge of total destruction. Mao was a turning point. China became a giant iron fist and no nation dares to threat China since then. (Mao brought security).
2) Mao laid solid foundation of industrialization and modernization. Even under tough Western sanction, China built almost everything on its own, from bicycle to satellite! Population doubled under Mao’s 27 years rule.(Mao brought growth).
3) Mao liberated women, he called “half sky”. Under Mao, women got free education, equal employment, and freedom of marriage. They no longer need to become concubines or prostitution; (Mao brought equality)
4) Mao hates bureaucracy. In a Confucius society, bureaucracy was always the oppressors of the people. Mao educated Chinese people to be their own masters. During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese people, not the elites but the ordinary people start to learn to manage their own affairs. (Mao brought freedom)
5) Mao was a great internationalist and liberator! He supported the Third World countries to be independent from exploitations of the capitalism. and imperialists. From Vietnam wars to Africa independent movement, people learn from Mao that their enemies are only “paper tigers”. (Mao brought a better world)
6) Mao worked tirelessly to built an equal and fair society, a society that is free from exploitation and prejudice. He failed his political goals with his last attempt of Cultural Revolution. However his vision stays alive and will guide China to a brighter future! (Mao brought hope to humanity)
The list could go on and on…
For those who demonize Mao, listen, Chinese people are not stupid to fall your trap! We will forever treasure our greatest national hero! Look at your own dirty bags, from slave trading and modern “shock and owe”, please don’t pretend to be humanists.
12. Po Lu Ting | 06.24.09
Well, I guess the same could be said for Hitler and Stalin…and there are still brainwashed people who idolize them.
13. james | 06.24.09
China bought an unfinished Soviet (Russian) carrier labelled as “scrap” to avoid violating treaties.
14. Wahaha | 06.25.09
1) Mao liberated China from the suppression of West and Japan, something no1 was able to do.
2) Mao completely destoryed the class system in China and leberated chinese women (Would Gandhi or anyone on earth be able to accomplish that ?).
3) Mao commited hideous crime during cultrue revolution.
Now who are brainwashed ?
BTW, Stalin was voted the 3rd most popular russian in Russian history by russian people.
15. nathan | 07.20.09
No matter how foreigners view moa, he was heaven sent for china. In her darkest hour of need under foreign invasion and subjugation, the heavens sent a man of power and vision to unite china and liberate its people. In the future when once again china is plunged into another darkness by the usual suspects, another man of power shall rise up from the people and bring china out of darkness.
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1. Alex Madison | 06.22.09
Fairness and Relevance are cardinal virtues.
Yes, historically speaking, the leader take the blame. But, what about the people. Even after all these decades, they want his name. Imagine back then. Dictators rule because the people allow them to rule. All it takes is a bullet, a bomb, etc.
What about more complicated issues. what about promising south-east asians that we would not betray them, and then getting out of their, and buying our safety with the confidential records of their treason (in favor of us, of democracy), thereby making it easy for the communists to execute millions of them.
What about fighting communism, at least covertly, when we knew we would not fight openly. We let those people hope.
Think about it. The Soviet Union is credited with exterminating 80-120 million people.
Well, once we leave our values behind, and think objectively, most of these people died in legitimate, or at least competitive and violent struggles. Struggles in which they were likewise killing victims, which are converted into soviet victims.
The few cases which truly come as innocent, in the sense of no competition, were the Volga Germans. However, they had monopolized their position and become a plague, and an insult, on the Russian ethnics. They essentially kept dozens of millions of Serfs under their economic might. Well, they were deported to Siberia.