The Global Times took to Twitter to post a 30-second TikTok video showering the evil dictator in glory to “recall a warm and powerful smile” in a chilling propaganda piece. But the decision sparked fury online as commentators from across the political spectrum, along with hundreds of observers, shared their horror at the tribute to a leader responsible for the deaths of between 40-80 million during his reign of terror.
Accompanied by Chinese imperial music, clips of Mao smiling and laughing are played back to back as the newspaper honours the founder of the People’s Republic of China and Chinese Communist Party.
The chilling clips show the Chairman from his career as a young leader straight out of the army, up to his final years as an elderly head of state.
In some moments he can be seen wearing combat fatigues, while other shots of the dictator show him at work in the Chinese Parliament.
But the video prompted outrage online for the bizarre reference to what the Global Times called Mao’s “warm and powerful smile”.
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Author Annika H Rothstein Tweeted: “40 million people died under his rule.”
While Indian political commentator Sunanda Vashisht hammered: “Propaganda is a fantastical art.”
Others drew on Mao’s deadly reign and his merciless approach to leadership.
@RobWhit28130167 said: “Psychopath and genocidal megalomaniac.”
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Rising from peasant beginnings, Mao founded the Chinese Communist Party in 1921.
Following a civil war between the Communists and nationalists, Mao took power and began to implement sweeping changes across what became the People’s Republic of China.
As leader, Chairman Mao was responsible for the deadly policies of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the ‘Cultural Revolution’, efforts to reshape Chinese society in the reflection of communism, but this ended in the deaths of tens of millions.
Chairman Mao died in office, aged 82, on September 9, 1976.