Thousands of people paid tribute to Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China the 130th anniversary of his birth.
Local Chinese media shows images of thousands of people holding flowers in the central Chinese city of Shaoshan, where Mao was born 130 years ago.
According to the local newspaper “Global Times”, Shaoshan is said to have received some 111,570 in the last few days, which is 13.92% compared to the same days in 2019.
From 2020 to 2022, Chinese citizens were banned from traveling due to the coronavirus pandemic and China’s strict “Covid 0” policy.
Mao was born on December 26, 1893 in this once small town. Chinese people often travel from different parts of the country to pay tribute to the “Great Helmsman.”
According to the EFE agency, the Chinese authorities have promoted the call in recent years “Red Tourism” and visits to sites related to the history of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The official newspaper of the CCP, a formation that Mao helped found, commemorated this on its official account on the Weibo social network today to “the great patriot and national hero of China in modern times”while praising the former leader for “leading the Chinese people to completely change their own destiny.”
However, Mao’s figure is controversial in China because he was involved in events that cost millions of lives, such as the famine Great Leap Forward or the Chaos of the Cultural Revolutionwhich is why many citizens of the country do not approve of these laudatory acts