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WORLD AFFAIRS GROUP : CHINA SERIES

THE BATTLE FOR CHINA'S PAST:
Mao and the Cultural Revolution

Dr Mobo Gao  
Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Adelaide Confucius Institute at the University of Adelaide, and author of Gao Village: A Portrait of Rural Life in Modern China, 1999

Wednesday, 14 May 2008 at 7.30pm

As China embraces capitalism, the Mao era is being surgically denigrated by the Chinese political and intellectual elite. This book tackles the highly negative depiction of China under Mao in recent publications, and argues that most people in China, including the rural poor and the urban working class, actually benefited from Mao's later policies, which included a comprehensive welfare system that gave basic health and education provision - policies now being reversed in the current rush towards capitalism.
Through a critical analysis of mainstream accounts of the Mao era, and by revealing what is offered in unofficial e-media debates, this talk will set the record straight, and build a rigorous argument for the ultimately positive effects of Mao's policies upon the well-being of the Chinese people.