Tibet: Stony-Faced Mao to Loom Over Tibet
Late Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong is set to cast a huge shadow over Tibet once again with a giant stone statue of the Great Helmsman on its way to the Himalayan region
Late Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong is set to
cast a huge shadow over Tibet once again with a giant stone statue of the Great
Helmsman on its way to the Himalayan region, a newspaper said on Wednesday.
China's biggest statue of Mao -- rising 7.1 metres from a 5.16-metre pedestal -- is due to arrive by truck in Gongga county under police escort in just over a week, the Beijing News said.
Changsha, capital of the southern province of Hunan, Mao's birthplace, donated the statue to Gongga as part of aid for Tibet, the newspaper said. The statue will be a landmark in the county's Changsha Square, which will be completed in July.
Mao is still revered by many in China as a demigod even though during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, thousands of Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns were forced to return to secular life, temples were destroyed and statues and sutras were burned.
