Sixty years ago, 19-year-old Geng Zhifeng looked up in elation as revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) stood on the Tiananmen rostrum and proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
It is a moment seared forever into Geng’s memory, and which the nation of 1.3 billion people will celebrate on Thursday with a military parade and carefully choreographed mass performances in Tiananmen Square.
“Everyone was clapping, waving red flags and chanting ‘Long live Chairman Mao, long live Chairman Mao,’” said Geng, 79, making sweeping hand gestures as he described the “grand” scene.
PHOTO: AFP
“We had been liberated. How could we not be happy about the founding of the People’s Republic of China?” Geng said, sitting outside the tiny brick home in one of Beijing’s historic neighborhoods where he has lived for 69 years.
China has launched a massive security operation for this week’s National Day festivities amid rising social and ethnic unrest, and it continues to face criticism over its human rights record and lack of democratic politics.
But for those who remember the old days, pre-1949, the holiday remains a cause for celebration, offering insight into how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to command strong support among China’s vast population.
Like countless millions of Chinese before the communist “liberation,” Geng and his family struggled to survive in a traumatized, war-shattered country and life was full of hardship for the low-paid electrician.
His father and younger brother had died of illnesses they could not afford to treat. Food shortages were routine.
Post-1949, he beams, the CCP came through with jobs, a social safety net and medicine for the masses.
“So before liberation our lives were very difficult. But after liberation, there was no comparison,” he said.
Wu Pei, now 81, also was at Tiananmen on Oct. 1, but, as a destitute 21-year-old laborer worried about where his next meal would come from, thoughts of political change were far from his mind.
“At the time, the prices of commodities could change eight times in one day. There was a long waiting line every day when I went to buy rice,” he said.
“We knew that after liberation our lives would be better, but we didn’t think much about the country — just our own lives,” Wu said.
Wu made about 50 yuan (US$7 at today’s rate) a month in 1949. Thanks to the party, his retirement pension today is 2,000 yuan per month — much more than he needs, he boasts.
Like other witnesses, he is full of pride over rising living standards in China and the country’s re-emergence as a global economic, military and political power.
“The changes have been great, earthshaking,” Wu said.
“We could not have foreseen that things would turn out like this. We only thought it would be better, but never this good,” he said.
For those who saw China on its knees, even dark times such as the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and disastrous communist economic policies are dismissed as bumps in the road that had their upsides.
The Cultural Revolution, for example, was the impetus for Deng Xiaoping’s (鄧小平) economic reforms that restored China’s strength, Wu said.
“[The Cultural Revolution] created huge waste in society and brought much misfortune, but it helped to liberate our thinking,” Wu said.
Not everyone, however, will be celebrating on Thursday.
Dissident Bao Tong (鮑彤) was a 16-year-old budding party cadre in Shanghai in 1949 when the news of Mao’s proclamation was broadcast.
“We were all so thrilled. A light rain came, but everyone kept celebrating very happily,” he said.
Bao later became a close aide to former Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽), but was dragged down along with him when he was purged for opposing the use of force on the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
“In 1949, I thought the Chinese people had really been liberated. We were freed, and would not be oppressed anymore. Everyone would be able to speak their minds, and to work, and to eat,” Bao said.
“I was very excited. But in the end, I realized it was not to be,” he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including