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Article: Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- March 12, 1994
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE Chinese like to think that they take a long view of history, but even an historian with a squint would have noticed the 100 years since the birth of Mao Zedong. He, and his most loyal henchman, Zhou Enlai, forced China into a communist system for nearly 30 years. Their successor, Deng Xiaoping, has spent the past 15 years pretending to carry on their struggle, but in reality undoing their work. In this Chinese world of fleeting, and often false, reputations, history is a matter of high politics.
Both William Lindesay's version of Mao and Han Suyin's version of Zhou have been shaped by the current, official view from Beijing, although both absorbed the picture in ...