China to celebrate Mao's birthday, but events scaled back

By Ben Blanchard and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - China celebrates the 120th birthday of Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China, on Thursday, but will be scaling back festivities as President Xi Jinping embarks on broad economic reforms which have unsettled leftists.

Mao has become a potent symbol for leftists within the ruling Communist Party who feel that three decades of market-based reform have gone too far, creating social inequalities like a yawning rich-poor gap and pervasive corruption.

In venerating Mao, they sometimes seek to put pressure on the current leadership and its market-oriented policies while managing to avoid expressing open dissent.

While members of the party's elite inner core, the Politburo Standing Committee, are likely to attend a high-profile event in Beijing to mark the anniversary, activities nationwide have been toned down, two sources with ties to the leadership told Reuters.

"The level will be high, but the number of events will be scaled back," one of the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions for talking to a foreign reporter without permission.

"The attendance of Standing Committee members is to placate leftists after reforms at the third plenum," the source added.

China last month unwrapped its boldest set of economic and social reforms in nearly three decades, relaxing its one-child policy and further freeing up markets in order to put the world's second-largest economy on a more stable footing.

Still, Xi and his team gave themselves until 2020 to achieve "decisive" results - a tacit acknowledgement of the difficulty of the task when the state-run sector championed during Mao's heyday remains strong and when many are unhappy with growing social problems bought by the party's economic reforms.

"The celebrations have to be grand or people will not be happy," said another source, who has ties to the party's traditional leftists.

Mao, who died in 1976, remains a divisive figure.

His image adorns banknotes and his embalmed body attracts hundreds if not thousands of visitors a day to Beijing.

While the party has acknowledged he made mistakes, there has yet to be an official accounting for the chaos of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution or the millions of deaths from starvation during the 1958-61 Great Leap Forward.

NO SIDE SATISFIED?

Xi suffered personally during the Cultural Revolution when his father was imprisoned. Xi was sent down to the countryside to live with peasants, like millions of other urban Chinese youth.

While visiting Hunan, the southern province where Mao was born, in early November, Xi said the celebrations for the anniversary should be "solemn, simple and pragmatic", according to state media.

That did not stop Xi from lauding Maoism in several speeches this year, as he sought to appeal to leftists in the wake of a scandal involving Bo Xilai, a former contender for top leadership who pushed an egalitarian, quasi-Maoist agenda until he was felled and jailed for corruption.

"In the end, probably no side will be very satisfied," said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based political commentator and historian, referring to how China will mark the birthday.

"The reformers don't think Mao should be commemorated, because he committed crimes, but his supporters think the commemorations aren't enough."

Chinese newspapers have reported that several events originally planned for Thursday have been adjusted or changed completely, including a concert which was supposed to celebrate Mao but which has been relabelled a new year gala.

"The authorities don't want the commemorations for Mao to be high-profile," influential tabloid the Global Times, published by the party's official People's Daily, quoted Wang Zhanyang, director of the Political Science Department at the Central Institute of Socialism, as saying.

"Some regional conservative people and officials with vested interests want to restrain reform by falsely promoting some of Mao's most conservative thoughts, which is not what the party follows," Wang added.

Still, the message appears not to have totally seeped through to Hunan, where many still venerate Mao as a demigod.

The town of Shaoshan, where Mao was born on December 26, 1893, has spent about 2 billion yuan (201 million pounds) on 12 projects for the anniversary celebration, the official Xiangtan Daily reported.

(Additional reporting by Adam Rose; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Question over purged China leader's remains as widow dies

BEIJING (Reuters) - The widow of late Chinese Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, toppled for opposing the 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, died this week, the family said, leaving a question over what will happen to his unburied remains.

Liang Boqi died peacefully in a Beijing hospital late on Wednesday aged 95, the family said in a statement on Thursday.

Her husband died under house arrest at age 85 in 2005. His remains were cremated and put in an urn which was still kept at the family's traditional courtyard house as no final resting place had been found, a source close to the family told Reuters.

It was now unclear what would happen to those remains, or what would happen to the children who still live in the house in central Beijing, which is provided by the government, the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

Normally when a senior leader dies, his widow can continue to stay in the government provided home but when the widow dies, the children are usually forced to move out.

The cabinet spokesman's office, which doubles as the party's public affairs office, did not respond to a request for comment.

Top leaders' remains are normally interred at the Baobashan cemetery in western Beijing, but Zhao was not given that honour as the party wanted him forgotten and offered a resting place in an obscure location. The family turned that offer down as it would have been inaccessible to the public.

The party, which values stability above all else, has remained nervous about Zhao's residual influence and has tried to erase him from public memory, blanking out his role in economic reforms that turned China from a economic backwater into a powerhouse.

Zhao never recanted in his opposition to the 1989 crackdown.

The government has resisted repeated calls from activists and dissidents to change its verdict that the Tiananmen protests were a "counter-revolutionary rebellion" and hold inquiries into what happened.

(Reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim; Writing by Ben Blanchard)

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China to celebrate Mao's birthday, but events scaled back

By Ben Blanchard and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - China celebrates the 120th birthday of Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China, on Thursday, but will be scaling back festivities as President Xi Jinping embarks on broad economic reforms which have unsettled leftists.

Mao has become a potent symbol for leftists within the ruling Communist Party who feel that three decades of market-based reform have gone too far, creating social inequalities like a yawning rich-poor gap and pervasive corruption.

In venerating Mao, they sometimes seek to put pressure on the current leadership and its market-oriented policies while managing to avoid expressing open dissent.

While members of the party's elite inner core, the Politburo Standing Committee, are likely to attend a high-profile event in Beijing to mark the anniversary, activities nationwide have been toned down, two sources with ties to the leadership told Reuters.

"The level will be high, but the number of events will be scaled back," one of the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions for talking to a foreign reporter without permission.

"The attendance of Standing Committee members is to placate leftists after reforms at the third plenum," the source added.

China last month unwrapped its boldest set of economic and social reforms in nearly three decades, relaxing its one-child policy and further freeing up markets in order to put the world's second-largest economy on a more stable footing.

Still, Xi and his team gave themselves until 2020 to achieve "decisive" results - a tacit acknowledgement of the difficulty of the task when the state-run sector championed during Mao's heyday remains strong and when many are unhappy with growing social problems bought by the party's economic reforms.

"The celebrations have to be grand or people will not be happy," said another source, who has ties to the party's traditional leftists.

Mao, who died in 1976, remains a divisive figure.

His image adorns banknotes and his embalmed body attracts hundreds if not thousands of visitors a day to Beijing.

While the party has acknowledged he made mistakes, there has yet to be an official accounting for the chaos of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution or the millions of deaths from starvation during the 1958-61 Great Leap Forward.

NO SIDE SATISFIED?

Xi suffered personally during the Cultural Revolution when his father was imprisoned. Xi was sent down to the countryside to live with peasants, like millions of other urban Chinese youth.

While visiting Hunan, the southern province where Mao was born, in early November, Xi said the celebrations for the anniversary should be "solemn, simple and pragmatic", according to state media.

That did not stop Xi from lauding Maoism in several speeches this year, as he sought to appeal to leftists in the wake of a scandal involving Bo Xilai, a former contender for top leadership who pushed an egalitarian, quasi-Maoist agenda until he was felled and jailed for corruption.

"In the end, probably no side will be very satisfied," said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based political commentator and historian, referring to how China will mark the birthday.

"The reformers don't think Mao should be commemorated, because he committed crimes, but his supporters think the commemorations aren't enough."

Chinese newspapers have reported that several events originally planned for Thursday have been adjusted or changed completely, including a concert which was supposed to celebrate Mao but which has been relabelled a new year gala.

"The authorities don't want the commemorations for Mao to be high-profile," influential tabloid the Global Times, published by the party's official People's Daily, quoted Wang Zhanyang, director of the Political Science Department at the Central Institute of Socialism, as saying.

"Some regional conservative people and officials with vested interests want to restrain reform by falsely promoting some of Mao's most conservative thoughts, which is not what the party follows," Wang added.

Still, the message appears not to have totally seeped through to Hunan, where many still venerate Mao as a demigod.

The town of Shaoshan, where Mao was born on December 26, 1893, has spent about 2 billion yuan (201 million pounds) on 12 projects for the anniversary celebration, the official Xiangtan Daily reported.

(Additional reporting by Adam Rose; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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China marks Mao's birth with noodles and songs

Admirers of Communist China's founder Mao Zedong celebrated the 120th anniversary of his birth Thursday with noodles and fireworks, as President Xi Jinping carefully marked the occasion by visiting the controversial leader's preserved corpse.

Mao -- the founder of the People's Republic who led the country for 27 years until his death in 1976 -- commands reverence among many Chinese but also condemnation by critics who say his disastrous political and economic campaigns led to tens of millions of deaths.

The ruling Communist Party has sought to balance praising the so-called Great Helmsman -- from whom the legitimacy of its leadership derives -- while also acknowledging that he made "mistakes".

At the same time Mao has emerged as a rallying point for those discontented with the stark inequality and widespread corruption that have accompanied China's market-led boom.

Thousands stood through the night near his childhood home in Shaoshan, in the central province of Hunan, where fireworks streaked the sky above a giant statue of him.

"Mao was a great leader of the Chinese nation, he was a perfect person and for us young people he is someone to learn from," said Jiang Qi, 33, a construction company employee, as others cried "Long live Chairman Mao".

At least 100 self-described "Red Internet friends", a group of activists to the left of the current Communist Party leadership, were present, some waving home-made red flags and shouting for "the downfall of American imperialism".

Several said that police detained pro-Mao activists from different provinces to prevent them attending the anniversary, underscoring the challenge faced by China's leaders.

"The police have intercepted many, many of us," said a man surnamed Wei, who held a banner with Mao's face and did not wish to give his full name for fear of reprisals.

"The government is not as upright as Chairman Mao, so they are afraid, they are all corrupt," he added.

Some of the celebrations had religious overtones, with pilgrims burning fragrant incense, bowing and calling for blessings from the late leader.

"We are lighting incense to express our thanks to Mao Zedong," said He Peng, a middle aged woman, after kneeling on the ground and reciting a poem in praise of him.

Much of the 1.94 billion yuan ($320 million) reportedly budgeted by Shaoshan for the anniversary went up in smoke during firework display, which lasted more than four hours, and down the throats of the thousands who lined up for free servings of noodles -? a traditional birthday meal in China.

"Through eating these noodles we can be happy, they express long life and our love for Chairman Mao, who is great," said a 63-year-old woman surnamed Ding, after tucking into a steaming bowl, adding that Mao "defeated Japanese imperialism".

But Mao's legacy remains a divisive topic in China, where the Communist Party's official stance is that he was "70 percent right and 30 percent wrong" -- and it has never allowed an open historical reckoning of his actions.

Political initiatives launched by Mao such as the "Great Leap Forward" and the Cultural Revolution led to more than 40 million deaths through violence and starvation, according to some Chinese and foreign estimates.

In Beijing, China's top seven-ranked politicians including Xi and Premier Li Keqiang visited the mausoleum where Mao's preserved body lies on public display on Thursday morning, the official Xinhua news agency said.

They bowed three times and "jointly recalled Comrade Mao's glorious achievements", it added in a brief report.

The celebrations in Shaoshan, where pilgrims sung Mao-era songs such as "The East Is Red", at times resembled the "Red song" concerts championed by ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai, who was sentenced to life in prison on corruption charges this year.

Some of those paying respects to Mao said they remained loyal to Bo, the highest profile politician to be sentenced in decades and whose brash political style is said to have alienated party leaders.

"All those who love Chairman Mao also love Secretary Bo," one middle-aged man surnamed Shan said, adding: "Mao is our great leader."

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China celebrates Mao's birthday, but events scaled back

By Ben Blanchard and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - China celebrated the 120th birthday of Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China, on Thursday, but with scaled-back festivities as President Xi Jinping embarks on broad economic reforms which have unsettled leftists.

Mao has become a potent symbol for leftists within the ruling Communist Party who feel that three decades of market-based reform have gone too far, creating social inequalities like a yawning rich-poor gap and pervasive corruption.

In venerating Mao, they sometimes seek to put pressure on the current leadership and its market-oriented policies while managing to avoid expressing open dissent.

While all seven members of the party's elite inner core, the Politburo Standing Committee, visited Mao's mausoleum on Tiananmen Square, other activities nationwide were toned down.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said on its Weibo microblog that the leaders, including Xi, bowed three times in front of a statue of Mao and payed their respects to his embalmed body, "recalling Comrade Mao Zedong's great achievements".

The party's official People's Daily newspaper pushed to its inside pages stories about Mao's birthday, although it did carry a commentary praising him as a "great patriot and hero".

A source with ties to the leadership said there would still be a high level of activity to mark the occasion but the number of events would be scaled back.

"The attendance of Standing Committee members is to placate leftists after reforms at the third plenum," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions for talking to a foreign reporter without permission.

China last month unwrapped its boldest set of economic and social reforms in nearly three decades, relaxing its one-child policy and further freeing up markets in order to put the world's second-largest economy on a more stable footing.

Still, Xi and his team gave themselves until 2020 to achieve "decisive" results - a tacit acknowledgement of the difficulty of the task when the state-run sector championed during Mao's heyday remains strong and when many are unhappy with growing social problems brought by the party's economic reforms.

"The celebrations have to be grand or people will not be happy," said another source, who has ties to the party's traditional leftists.

Mao, who died in 1976, remains a divisive figure.

His image adorns banknotes and his embalmed body attracts hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors a day to Beijing.

While the party has acknowledged he made mistakes, there has yet to be an official accounting for the chaos of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution or the millions of deaths from starvation during the 1958-61 Great Leap Forward.

NO SIDE SATISFIED?

Xi suffered personally during the Cultural Revolution when his father was jailed. Xi was sent to the countryside to live with peasants, like millions of other young urban Chinese.

While visiting Hunan, the southern province where Mao was born, in early November, Xi said the celebrations for the anniversary should be "solemn, simple and pragmatic", according to state media.

That did not stop Xi from lauding Maoism in several speeches this year, as he sought to appeal to leftists in the wake of a scandal involving Bo Xilai, a former contender for top leadership who pushed an egalitarian, quasi-Maoist agenda until he was felled and jailed for corruption.

"In the end, probably no side will be very satisfied," said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based political commentator and historian, referring to how China will mark the birthday.

"The reformers don't think Mao should be commemorated, because he committed crimes, but his supporters think the commemorations aren't enough."

Chinese newspapers have reported that several events originally planned for Thursday have been adjusted or changed completely, including a concert that was supposed to celebrate Mao but which has been relabelled a new year gala.

"The authorities don't want the commemorations for Mao to be high-profile," influential tabloid the Global Times, published by the party's official People's Daily, quoted Wang Zhanyang, director of the Political Science Department at the Central Institute of Socialism, as saying.

"Some regional conservative people and officials with vested interests want to restrain reform by falsely promoting some of Mao's most conservative thoughts, which is not what the party follows," Wang added.

Still, the message appears not to have totally seeped through to Hunan, where many still venerate Mao as a demigod.

The town of Shaoshan, where Mao was born on December 26, 1893, has spent about 2 billion yuan ($329 million) on 12 projects for the anniversary celebration, the official Xiangtan Daily reported.

(Additional reporting by Adam Rose; Editing by Robert Birsel and Paul Tait)

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Apple Strikes iPhone Deal With China Mobile

Apple has finally secured a deal to bring the iPhone to China Mobile, the world's biggest network, opening the door to a massive sales boost.

The state-owned network has more than 750 million subscribers.

The latest iPhone 5S and 5C will go on sale in the country from January 17, with analysts forecasting a sales surge of anywhere between 10 and 25 million over the next year.

China's granting of 4G licences earlier this month is thought to have helped the deal as the faster network is compatible with the iPhone.

In a statement promoting the deal, Apple and China Mobile said they were "excited" to finally be working together.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said: "Apple has enormous respect for China Mobile and we are excited to begin working together.

"China is an extremely important market for Apple and our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world's largest network."

While popular around the world, the iPhone has faced tough competition in China from cheaper Android smartphones made by the likes of Samsung. Collectively, Android phones far outsell iPhone models.

Apple's cheaper 5C model, which was released earlier this year, was widely seen as an attempt to crack the Chinese market.

:: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202.

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Japanese PM Abe visits shrine for war dead, China angered

By Antoni Slodkowski and Linda Sieg

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine for war dead on Thursday, a temple seen as a symbol of Japan's World War Two militarism, prompting a swift and sharp rebuke from China.

The first serving prime minister to visit the shrine in seven years, Abe however said he had no intention of hurting the sentiments of Japan's neighbours.

China and South Korea have repeatedly expressed anger in the past over Japanese politicians' visits to Yasukuni, where Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal are honoured along with war dead.

Tokyo's relations with Beijing and Seoul are already strained by territorial rows and disputes stemming from Japan's wartime occupation of large parts of China and its 1910-1945 colonisation of the Korean peninsula.

Abe, who took office for a second term exactly one year ago, visited the shrine in central Tokyo around 0230 GMT. Television carried live video of his motorcade making its way to the shrine, built in 1896 by Emperor Meiji to enshrine the war dead, pray for eternal peace in Japan and to "foster friendly relations with people in the rest of the world".

The shrine played a central role in the wartime state Shinto religion which mobilised the population to fight in the name of a divine emperor.

On Thursday, Abe, dressed in a morning suit and a silver tie, bowed at the shrine before following a Shinto priest into an inner sanctum.

"There is criticism based on the misconception that this is an act to worship war criminals, but I visited Yasukuni Shrine to report to the souls of the war dead on the progress made this year and to convey my resolve that people never again suffer the horrors of war," Abe told reporters after the visit.

Stressing that it was natural for a nation's leader to pay his respects to those who died for their country, Abe said:

"I have no intention to hurt the feelings of the Chinese or Korean people."

Abe also said he shared the view of past Japanese leaders who had paid their respects at the shrine that ties with China and South Korea were important and that to make them firm was in Japan's national interests - and said that he would like to explain that if given the opportunity.

"It is my wish to respect each other's character, protect freedom and democracy and build friendship with China and Korea with respect, as did all the previous prime ministers who visited Yasukuni Shrine," Abe said in an English-language statement issued later.

Beijing, however, swiftly condemned and protested the visit, which it called "brazen".

"The Chinese government expresses strong indignation at the Japanese leader's trampling on the feelings of the people of China and the other war victim nations and the open challenge to historical justice ... and expresses strong protest and serious condemnation to Japan," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

FIRST SINCE 2006

Abe's visit to the shrine is the first by a serving Japanese prime minister since 2006. Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to Yasukuni during his 2001-2006 tenure were a major factor in the chill in ties between Japan and its Asian neighbours.

Abe, who succeeded Koizumi in 2006, stayed away during that term and repaired frayed ties with China with a summit meeting.

But he later said he regretted not visiting the shrine during his first 2006-2007 term. Visiting the shrine is part of Abe's conservative agenda to restore Japan's pride in its past and recast its wartime history with a less apologetic tone.

He also wants to ease the restraints of Japan's post-World War Two pacifist constitution on the military.

Sino-Japanese ties, already strained by a row over tiny Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that are also claimed by Beijing, chilled even further after China last month announced a new air defence identification zone that included airspace over the disputed islands.

China has criticised Japan's plans unveiled earlier this month to boost defence spending in coming years, buying early warning planes, beach assault vehicles and troop-carrying aircraft while seeking closer ties with Asian partners to counter a more militarily assertive China.

Abe has been active on the diplomatic front during his one year in office, but has not held summits with either Chinese or South Korean leaders.

Some political experts said Abe had probably calculated that his relatively high voter ratings could withstand any criticism over his Yasukuni pilgrimage, which would also shore up support in his conservative base.

He may also have felt that with ties with Beijing and Seoul in a deep freeze, a visit would hardly make things worse. But close ally the United States, which has made clear it does not favour Abe's historical revisionism, was unlikely to be pleased, the experts said.

"He probably thinks that things are not working well, so that this won't add further damage. I think he's wrong," said Koichi Nakano, a professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Abe's voter ratings have stayed at around 60 percent for most of the year due mainly to hopes his "Abenomics" recipe of hyper-easy monetary policy and spending was working.

His support slipped below 50 percent in recent polls after his ruling bloc forced a law through parliament tightening penalties for leaking state secrets that Abe said was needed for national security but that critics said had echoes of Japan's strict wartime secrecy regime.

"He probably thinks that it's OK, that's he's relatively popular and it's a matter of conviction," Nakano said.

"But everyone knew with Koizumi ... he wasn't a revisionist nationalist. But with Abe, that is precisely the question some people were asking. Now we know the answer."

(Additional reporting by Mari Saito in Tokyo and Ben Blanchard and Sui-lee Wee in Beijing; Editing by Shinichi Saoshiro and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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China announces principles of urbanisation plans

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has added details to its plans to migrate millions of its citizens from the countryside into cities, state media reported Saturday, to help restructure the economy by boosting consumer demand.

The government hopes 60 percent of China's population of almost 1.4 billion will be urban residents by 2020 as the country's new leaders seek to sustain growth that last year slowed to a 13-year low of 7.8 percent.

However, the leadership is struggling to balance multiple, occasionally conflicting goals such as encouraging the migration of millions of former farmers into cities without creating the slums and unemployment problems that have occurred in other countries experiencing similar migration.

Restrictions on migration, which have created a de-facto illegal immigrant population in many Chinese cities, composed of Chinese citizens who have migrated without permission, have proven a significant source of social instability and have highlighted the uneven distribution of the fruits of China's economic growth.

At the same time China wants to maintain an agricultural sector capable of keeping the country fed independently without recourse to imports, and some officials worry that this will become impossible if too many farmers leave their farms.

The statement issued at the end of a government conference committed to improving the quality of the process, without mentioning any new policies or timetables.

Indeed, the report specifically warned of undue haste in pursuing quick results.

The statement said it would improve the quality of "human-centred urbanisation" in an orderly manner. It said doing so would be key to dealing with the problem of rural poverty.

It also said more attention would be given to environmental protection during the process, and said care would be taken to more efficiently use land. China is short on arable land given its enormous population, and the government is concerned that too much farmland is being converted to residential or commercial property for the purposes of speculation.

"Endeavours will be exerted to gradually allow migrant workers to become more integrated in cities, fully remove hukou restrictions in towns and small cities, gradually ease restrictions in mid-sized cities, setting reasonable conditions for settling in big cities while strictly controlling the population in megacities," said an article in the official Xinhua news service describing the report.

But despite much talk, Beijing has proven reluctant to eliminate the system and has given mixed signals about how aggressively it is prepared to move in the near future.

Similarly, regulators have given mixed signals on how land reform will be managed. Giving farmers rights to sell their land and keep the proceeds would transfer wealth to individuals and give them a source of savings if they moved to a city, but it would also deprive local governments the ability to sell that land, which is currently a major source of revenue for them.

(Reporting by Pete Sweeney; Editing by Alison Williams)

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