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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS