Jonathan Mirsky
Reforming Opinions
The Battle for China's Past: Mao & the Cultural Revolution
By Mobo Gao
Pluto Press 280pp £18.99 order from our bookshop
Mobo Gao is a professor at Adelaide University and director of its Confucius Institute – which I imagine is supported in some way by the People’s Republic. Beijing now sponsors such centres to show that China has reclaimed aspects of its traditional past. If this is the case at Adelaide, Beijing will not like Gao’s views on post-Mao reform, so he should be commended for expressing them, even though I disagree with many of them.
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