Why China’s Gen Z is embracing Mao

Still revered: Preparing for last week’s event marking the 100th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China, Chinese military band members practice in front of a portrait of Mao in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. — Reuters

THEY read him in libraries and on subways. They organised online book clubs devoted to his works. They uploaded hours of audio and video, spreading the gospel of his revolutionary thinking. Chairman Mao is making a comeback among China’s Generation Z.

The Communist Party’s supreme leader is inspiring and comforting disaffected people born long after his death in 1976. To them, Mao Zedong is a hero who speaks to their despair as struggling nobodies.