From Reuters, via The Australian:
China’s Communist Party vigilantly guards its history, but this year the country must navigate a cascade of traumatic anniversaries of Mao Zedong’s rule that may provoke debate over its censored past.
Forty years ago, in May 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, the tumultuous mass campaign that spiralled into a decade of violence and repression.
The 30th anniversary of Mao’s death is on September 9.
Then there is the October 6 arrest of the radical Gang of Four, marking the party’s renunciation of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
And there is the Tangshan earthquake, which on July 28, 30 years ago, levelled the northern city, killing at least 240,000 people and exposing the country’s weakness and isolation.
