The wife of China’s former Number Two Liu Shaoqi, imprisoned for 12 years after being purged in the Cultural Revolution, has died at 85.
State media has not reported the death, probably as the government is loath to bring up anything touching on the Cultural Revolution, and in fact has banned media from mentioning that 2006 is the 40th anniversary of the start of that nightmare (and marks 30 years since it ended).
After she was rehabilitated, Wang concentrated on alleviating the plight of China’s poor, in part by auctioning off her private collection of antiques which were stolen by the Red Guards but for some reason not destroyed. About China’s poverty situation, Wang said, "It shouldn’t be like this. The country led by our Communist Party cannot let families be this destitute."
Perhaps that’s why they’re not eager to celebrate her life.
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