SCOPE: China opposes use of Mao's name by foreign guerrilla movements

Asian Economic News, May 17, 2004

BEIJING, May 14 Kyodo

Decades ago, when the Viet Cong, Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge made daily news, few in the West had any problem imagining a link between Chinese leader Mao Zedong and these revolutionary uprisings in Southeast Asia

And within China, the export of ''Mao thought'' was a source of pride.

But today, government authorities and many scholars say, the ''Maoism'' of foreign groups such as the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist), the Naxalite insurgents in India or Peru's Shining Path rebels, is definitely not China's ''Maoism.''

The tactics and antigovernment insurgency of Nepal's ''Maoists,'' which have resulted in at least 10,000 deaths since 1998, say authorities and scholars in Mao Zedong's homeland, are an insult to Mao.

Armed Naxalite revolutionaries in six Indian states stem from a 30-year-old organization called the Maoist Communist Center and the Shining Path rebels in Peru are often described as Maoists, but China disputes these references as well.

The groups often use Mao's name because they have emulated Mao Zedong's Long March in the 1940s to advance poor people by overthrowing a regime in their own homelands.

Western media, reference books, think tanks and travel guides warning of danger zones also use the term ''Maoist'' to describe these organizations.

But China officially opposes the references, particularly the Nepalese one, saying they ruin their great leader's name.

''Nepal's domestic antigovernment momentum is usurping the name of the Chinese people's great leader Mao Zedong,'' a China Foreign Ministry spokesperson said. ''China and this group have never had any connection, and inside China's borders there is also no organization or group with any kind of relation.''

China wants its people to see Mao as a halls-of-power hero rather than a shoot-to-kill guerrilla leader.

Mao unified China and founded the Communist Party of China, which rules today even if the tenets of communism are gradually being eliminated.

But there is no doubt of Mao's hero status.

His face appears today on posters, lapel pins, rear-view mirror decorations and Chinese currency.

''(Chinese authorities) hate to hear it,'' Ruan Cishan, a Phoenix TV political commentator in Hong Kong said of Mao's relation to insurgencies in other countries. ''They think these are an insult to Mao or to China. They even hate the Mike Tyson tattoo of Mao.''

The insurgents outside China are picking up on the Cultural Revolution, said Zhang Lili, an Asian studies instructor at the Foreign Studies College in Beijing.

Modern China views the 1966-1976 revolution, a period when Mao's Red Guards tortured and killed suspected rightists, as a mistake.

''There's no relation at all,'' Zhang said. ''They've studied our Cultural Revolution, but there's no relation with our Communist Party.''

And most everyday Chinese people don't know about the Mao labels outside China at all because the mainstream media at home do not mention them, Zhang added.

According to the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Nepalese group ''feeds on poverty, discontent with repressive policies and corruption.'' It says the insurgents are a continuing danger to northern India and to American organizations.

Their strategy ''is straight from Mao Zedong's writings -- a peasant takeover in the countryside to surround and threaten elites in urban areas, selective use of violence and reeducation of civilians,'' according to a Nepal page on Thevoyagers.com travel website.

The site says the insurgent group is also modeled on Peru's Shining Path.

The Maoist Communist Center in India was founded after a ''long march,'' according to the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. Fighting guerrilla-style for their ideology, they have hacked to death high-caste Indians and killed more than 50 police officers, according to Institute documents.

Even during the Southeast Asian revolutions of the 1950s to the 1970s, one group's ''Maoism,'' was not necessarily Mao Zedong's ''Maoism'' or the Chinese government's ''Maoism.''

But there are likenesses, said an Asian diplomat in Beijing, disputing China's position.

''There must be some political basis for these groups,'' the diplomat said. ''Mostly, the order of these groups is rural-based. Maybe they have certain links to Mao's (ideas).''