Chinese Openings

By ROGER COHEN
NYT

CHONGQING, CHINA — The tombstones loomed in the dusk, some of them rising more than 25 feet, each telling a forgotten story of China’s troubled history. I had come to find them because, for the first time, China has sanctioned the preservation here of a site commemorating the numberless victims of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

That’s a hopeful sign. I spent too long covering the bloody wars in the Balkans not to believe that history denied can devour you.

But until now, the Communist rulers of China have been relentless in suppressing the history of their worst errors, not least the frenzied attempt of Mao Zedong in the decade before his death to revitalize his rule by spreading terror.

So the decision, made last month by authorities in this gritty central Chinese city, to designate a cemetery containing the remains of 573 people slaughtered during the Cultural Revolution as an official relic worthy of maintenance is a significant opening.

(More here.)