"I cried to suffocate": the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong's death propaganda was ironic.

“I cried to suffocate, now rescue came, just sucked in oxygen.” On September 13, a video commentary area commemorating the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s death, was occupied by a series of seemingly “touched” and real sharp ironies. One of the “young people” in the video visited the Mao Chairman’s memorial hall and said that he “really wanted to watch him a little more” because of the fear of blocking the people behind, only to go to the exit and bow to Mao Zedong.

There were a lot of praise messages in the commentary area: “I haven’t dared to look at it so far, I’m afraid I’m crying,” “I’m almost crying into the ICU,” “Northern Film’s first admission next year,” “this classmate isn’t honest enough.” These messages didn’t positively insult Mao Zedong, but exaggerated the official expectations of reverence and sorrow to the absurd level, dismantling the loyalty itself with excessive loyalty.

It is not “weeping” that is being mocked, but a political performance

This online language is devastating because it almost entirely follows the emotional logic of the official commemorative narrative: the sadder the more loyal, the more exciting the more correct. Netizens do not argue positively with the language, but push it to the extent of "weeping", "suffering", "living in the ICU". When political worship is exaggerated to comic effects, the sense of solemnity needed for propaganda collapses with it.

The commentary area was subsequently restricted, showing that what the authorities were truly intolerant was not just gross attacks, but the decomposition of political sacredness. For the CCP, Mao Zedong was not an ordinary historical figure. He was both an important source of the legitimacy of the regime in 1949 and the first-generation supreme leader that the CCP still insisted on upholding. The public memory around Mao was therefore always bound by political boundaries.

Fifty years after Mao’s death, the Chinese Communist Party still refuses to let him withdraw from the political scene.

On September 9, 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of Mao’s death. Reuters that while the Chinese Communist Party characterized the Cultural Revolution as a serious mistake after Mao’s death and acknowledged Mao’s primary responsibility, it has alwaysined the official framework of “greater achievements than mistakes.” Mao’s huge image still hangs on the Tiananmen building, his remains are still displayed in the memorial hall in the center of Beijing, and political ceremonies continue to place him at the core of the historical narrative of the People’s Republic of China.

Xi Jinping not only inherited this arrangement, but also actively raised Mao Zedong's symbolic status. On the 130th anniversary of Mao Zedong's birth in 2023, Xi Jinping led the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China to the Mao Chairman's Commemoration Hall, sitting like three bowls to Mao Zedong and looking at his legacy; and then held a high-profile commemorative symposium in the People's Hall. Xi Jinping called Mao Zedong "a great generation" in his speech and demanded "to continue to push forward the pioneering cause of Comrade Mao Zedong".

Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed that the historical period after reform and opening up cannot be denied, nor can the historical period before reform and opening up be denied in return.This expression actually sets out a political red line: reform and opening up can correct the disasters caused by the Mao era, but can not develop into a fundamental denial of the legitimacy of Mao Zedong and the establishment of the Communist Party of China.

Reuters in the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong's death also specially pointed out that Xi Jinping himself and his family were the victims of the Cultural Revolution.His father Xi Jinping was sanctioned, the young Xi Jinping was politically shocked and put down in the countryside.But Xi Jinping did not publicly liquidate Mao Zedong's political responsibilities after taking power, instead of further strengthening the ideological unity, the leadership authority and the Party's centralized control of society.

It is not an abstract “mistake” left behind, but mass deaths and political persecution.

The official commemoration of the most deliberately diminished narrative is the national violence and humanitarian catastrophe under Mao Zedong's supreme power.The anti-right movement in 1957 classified intellectuals, cadres and ordinary citizens on a massive scale as "right", fighting, labor training, deployment and occupational deprivation destroyed a large number of individuals and families, and made public criticism of supreme leadership and policy a dangerous act.

The big leap, launched in 1958, further transformed individual will into national policy. People's Communes, compulsory collectivization, fake news production, high food procurement and high political pressures co-created the Great Hunger. The Cambridge University Publication's Cambridge Economic History of China study estimates that the Great Hunger from 1958 to 1961 killed about 30 million people; and other demographics and historical studies give figures ranging from about 16 million to more than 40 million.

In 1966, Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution to regain political power, and youths were mobilized to attack so-called “class enemies,” and schools, institutions and social order were plunged into a long-term political struggle.Andrew Wald, a Stanford scholar, used more than 2,000 local and internal surveys to estimate that between 1966 and 1971 political conflicts and repression killed between 1.1 million and 1.6 million people, and that between 22 million and 30 million people were subjected to various forms of political persecution. The vast majority of deaths were not simply “out of control” by the masses, but occurred in the process of rebuilding national power and organized repression.

These historical facts determined that today’s commemoration of Mao Zedong could not be merely “the memory of the founding leaders.”When officials left only “great men,” “grand achievements” and personal symbols of worship, but overwhelmed the weight of hunger, persecution and death, the commemoration itself was re-shaping the historical memory.

External pressure rises, but Beijing’s response is tightening toward the inside.

Mao Zedong regained a sense of political reality and also occurred in a significantly different international environment than a decade ago. China-US technology competition has escalated, and the U.S. government accused several Chinese AI companies of large-scale replicating U.S. model technology through distillation; while Europe is pushing for stronger import safeguards for chemical and plastic products mainly from China. China's exports are still strong, but Europe and the U.S. have significantly enhanced the protection against industrial security, supply chains and China's overcapacity.

At the same time, China’s domestic economic growth model is also under pressure.In the second quarter of 2026, the economic growth rate fell to 4.3%, real estate prices, investment and residential borrowing continued to weaken; and in August, exports grew sharply, once again highlighting China’s economy’s dependence on external demand. The era of reform and opening-up had provided the regime with important legitimacy resources through continued growth, market expansion and globalization, and the marginal effects of this model are now declining.

On September 15, China's new technology and national safety entry and exit regulations came into effect.Chinese citizens who are identified as threatening national or technological security in areas such as export control, technology import and export can face six months to three years of exit restrictions; the new regulations further legalized previously decentralized travel control practices and expanded the discretion of relevant departments. The more intense the external competition, the more Beijing incorporates technology, personnel movement and social governance into the "national security" framework.

International pressure cannot mechanically explain China's political tightening, but it constitutes an important real environment for Xi's strengthening security and governance.In the face of technological blockade, trade friction, Taiwan Sea and regional security competition, and weak domestic growth, Xi did not choose to release social vitality with greater political openness, but instead put "security", "struggle", "Party leadership" and political loyalty in the forefront.

This is where Mao’s political heritage has been reused.The Mao era provided a set of power languages very familiar to the Communist Party of China: external enemies, internal unity; crisis needs to concentrate power; different opinions can be described as political risks; and the highest leaders are shaped as the ultimate representatives of the country’s direction. Today, the so-called “driving back” is not the re-issuance of food bills and the restoration of the People’s Commune, but this political logic overwhelms the limited expansion of social space and institutional constraints during the period of reform and opening up.

In 2018, China's constitutional amendments abolished the restriction on no more than two consecutive presidency terms, and Xi Jinping subsequently entered the third country presidency. The "core" status within the party, ideological education, national security system and control of the media, the Internet, and social organizations have been synchronized. Maoist politics has not revived, but its most critical parts

• personal authority, political loyalty, struggle narrative and distrust of independent social forces
• are being reassembled under new technological and institutional conditions.

Mao Zedong is looking for historical legitimacy for today’s route.

The Xi Jinping regime is unable to completely deny Mao Zedong, and there is a more direct reason: If Mao as the main founder of the People’s Republic of China and the CCP regime is completely denied, then the historical assessment of not only one person is shaken, but also the legitimacy of the CCP’s rule since 1949. Therefore, the catastrophe caused by Mao can be called a “mistake,” but Mao himself must continue to stay near the Temple.

In the face of a slowing economic growth, intensifying international competition and a lack of social confidence in China, Mao Zedong is not only a symbol of the past, but also a political resource that can re-require obedience, sacrifice and struggle. The more power is needed to concentrate, the more powerful politics is needed to be described as a historical mission; the more social obedience is needed, the more it is necessary to safeguard the supreme leader's sense of sacredness that cannot be publicly mocked.

This also explains why the words “crying to suffocate” and “nearly staying in the ICU” become sensitive. They don’t write long political statements, but directly destroy what the officials need most—people must be touched, commemorated, and revered in the manner prescribed.

Fifty years after the death of Mao Zedong, what China really faces is not whether the Mao era will not be completely repeated, but the logic of power of the Mao era is returning to reality in a new form: the national security is suppressing personal rights, the ideology is suppressing social pluralism, the personal authority is again above the constraints of the system.