Mao's Centenary and the BBC

In December 1993, on the eve of Mao Zedong's (毛泽东) centenary, BBC aired a documentary "Chairman Mao: The Last Emperor" which portrayed Mao as a tyrant with a voracious appetite for young girls.

The documentary relied heavily on accounts supplied by Mao's former doctor Li Zhisui (李志绥) who later published his own memoirs titled The Private Life of Chairman Mao.

At that time, the Chinese Embassy in London accused the BBC of "ulterior political motive", and tried to apply pressure on the British government to prevent the documentary from being aired, but to no avail.

As John Gittings wrote: "Beijing's protests had the unintended effect of appearing to reinforce the film's credibility although its case rested mainly on the strength of one man's recollections. The result was that the Western press focused almost entirely on Mao's alleged sex life during the centenary."

But in an ironical sequel, a later BBC programme in 1994 commemorating Deng Xiaoping's (邓小平) 90th birthday suggested that the sex stories had been given publicity by Deng's own supporters to settle scores with the dead Chairman!

Politics is bizarre anywhere in the world, but perhaps with its own peculiar quirks in China.