Mao's forgotten son dies
Mao Anqing lived through the most tumultuous era in the history of modern China. But he spent his last years as an unknown recluse.
He was the reclusive, mentally ill son of one of the most powerful and feared figures of the 20th century, and his 84-year life echoed one of the deepest traumas of modern history.
Yesterday a brief notice in the China News Service recorded the death of Mao Anqing, who survived his father to live on into a new China that the dictator would not have recognised.
Mao Zedong's second child, who died on Friday, lived through civil war, the execution of his mother, street life in Shanghai, and a journey to Paris and to Moscow, where he studied under Stalin's surveillance. Eventually he returned to China, where he was largely ignored by his father.
Read entire article at Guardian
He was the reclusive, mentally ill son of one of the most powerful and feared figures of the 20th century, and his 84-year life echoed one of the deepest traumas of modern history.
Yesterday a brief notice in the China News Service recorded the death of Mao Anqing, who survived his father to live on into a new China that the dictator would not have recognised.
Mao Zedong's second child, who died on Friday, lived through civil war, the execution of his mother, street life in Shanghai, and a journey to Paris and to Moscow, where he studied under Stalin's surveillance. Eventually he returned to China, where he was largely ignored by his father.