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The passing of the old guard
Transitional leader Hua Guofeng passes away at 87Posted by Joel Martinsen, August 21, 2008 12:52 PM
![]() Hua Guofeng, leader of China for a short time in the wake of Mao's death, died yesterday. Xinhua issued a short obituary (Hecaitou notes that there are 101 characters, including punctuation). A commenter on a Xinhuanet thread memorializing Hua succinctly sums up his place in Chinese history:
He Weifang, a law professor at Peking University, assessed Hua's legacy in a short blog post:
Interestingly, both laorwhy's and He Weifang's posts contain the word , "courageous and resolute." He uses it to describe Deng, while laorwhy applies it to Hua himself. He mentions a song referring to "Commissar Hua," which was a title Hua first picked up in 1945 when he became political commissar in his home county of Jiaocheng. Hua's original name was actually Su Zhu (苏铸), and his children go by that surname. Su adopted the name Hua Guofeng in 1938 as an abbreviation of "China Anti-Japanese National Salvation Vanguard" (中华民族抗日救国先锋). Biographer Ye Yonglie notes this and other aspects of Hua's pre-liberation career in a blog post drawn from his book Deng Xiaoping Changed China.
¤ Black and White Cat takes a look at Chairman Hua's various roles in propaganda posters at the time. ¤ Peijin Chen has a few screenshots of domestic media headlines about Hua's passing. ¤ Jeremiah Jenne at the Granite Studio blog has always been a Hua fan, and he promises a proper tribute. In the meantime, check out his annual appreciations of the man. Update (2008.08.25): Why Hua Guofeng matters....no, seriously. ¤ Victor Shih is a proponent of the view that Hua was Mao's son as an explanation for his meteoric rise to power. ¤ DJ at Fool's Mountain finds a forum comment that sums up Hua as a "nice person, an altruistic person, and a moral person." (2008.08.25) ¤ China Media Project gives an overview of how Hua's death was handled in the mainland's newspapers (2008.08.25) ¤ More reactions are collected in a fine post at The China Beat (2008.08.26) Mainstream media obituaries: New York Times, BBC, AP, Washington Post Links and Sources
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Comments on Transitional leader Hua Guofeng passes away at 87
A good and honest man is gone.