However, the world's fourth-largest economy with an annual economic growth of 10.3 per cent is witnessing changes in the way people perceive Mao, who was once painted as the savior of the most populous nation in the world.
Where before people carried Mao's red book with them as a source of inspiration, now Chinese entrepreneurs are turning to Mao's warfare tactics to earn profits.
Naobaijin, a popular tonic medicine sweeping across China, earned its profits and fame from using the ideas behind Mao's 'countryside surrounding city' and 'mass warfare' tactics in its advertising and sales campaigns, Zhou Dajiang, the author of Dang Shi Shang Jian, which turns Mao's tactics into business transactions, told the magazine.
But for China, which had gone through the agony of a civil war and the Japanese invasion from 1937 to 1945, Mao's glory will never fade from the public consciousness, even though people are becoming more practical in the way they use his teachings. Mao is the leader who helped relieve the suffering of the Chinese people.
A statue in Nanjie, a small village in central China's Henan Province is imprinted with the phrase, 'Chairman Mao is not a god, but his thoughts are better than god."
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