Xi was praising Mao Tse-tung yesterday

Brilliant thinking: Mao hated sparrows and instituted
a campaign to kill them all. Result: locust plagues
that led to famine and millions dead

To the Youth League of the Chinese Communist Party. And I was disgusted. Disgusted that this horrid, murderous, mendacious, slovenly tyrant should be praised. Just as I’m always disgusted when I’m in China and a cabbie has a swinging doll of Mao, hanging from the rear view mirror.

I get it why Xi does this.  He gains legitimacy from being linked to Mao. At least in China where Mao is still revered. 

Mao killed more human beings, intentionally and as side effects of his disastrous policies, than anyone ever. Hitler killed 6 million Jews. Stalin 20 million Kulaks. Mao? Around 100 million, in the Anti-Rightist campaign, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. And he didn’t care. A complete psychopath. 

But China has never been able to come to terms with the man. He’s revered for establishing the “Peoples Republic” in 1949. Had he not it would have been Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Kuomintang. More corrupt (arguably) but would have been better for China in the long term. We’d now be dealing with a Democratic China. Not a buffoon of a Winnie the Pooh, who blunders around the region causing mayhem