Letters | ‘China doesn’t need democracy’? Mao may have begged to differ

The founder of the People’s Republic in 1945 told of a vision of a free and democratic China that Xi Jinping’s governing philosophy would be at odds with

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Mao Zedong, China’s leader from 1949 until his death in 1976, supported the principles of Dr Sun Yat-Sen, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt in his reply to a Reuters reporter in 1945. Photo: Handout

Published: 8:16am, 12 Feb 2019Updated: 8:15am, 12 Feb 2019

Mr Chi Wang, the distinguished former head of the Chinese division of the US Library of Congress, announces that “China Doesn’t Need Democracy, it needs a strong leader like Xi Jinping ”, February 11).

I wonder if Mr Wang might explain how he reconciles this assertion with Mao Zedong’s own words on the subject. Mao provided a well-known, written question and answer about democracy to the Reuters correspondent in Chongqing, surnamed Campbell, that was published in the Xinhua Ribao on September 27, 1945. It is easily found, for example, even on Baidu. Its text runs thus:

“Question: What are the concept and definition of a free and democratic China according to the Chinese Communist Party?

Answer: A free and democratic China will be this kind of nation: all levels of government, including the central government, are created by general and equal secret balloting and are responsible to the people who elected them. It will implement Dr Sun Yat-sen’s three principles of democracy, Lincoln’s principle of ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’, and [Franklin D.] Roosevelt’s Atlantic Charter. It will assure the independence and unity of the nation and cooperate with all democratic powers.” (Excerpt from Takeuchi Minoru, Collected Writings of Mao Zedong, Tokyo: Hokubosha, 1970-1972).

Either Mr Wang has forgotten Mao’s written words, or Mao, architect and founder of the People’s Republic of China, responded disingenuously. Which is it?