I don't know if it's fair to compare him to Mao, as Mao's reputation is pretty bad in the west. The general feel of this article is like: oh, he's pretty cool, well, anti-corruption, but controlling, and take his job really seriously, just like HITLER! Whut...
But this article has very good details though. I enjoyed reading it.
Mao's reputation is mixed in mainland China, too. For more than 150 years, the big and powerful nation state of mind and the weakness in reality stay as a main force behind many things we see. It's a good starting point for reasoning many issues in China. And for me as a Chinese, it's a big negative sign before anything organically good could happen back home.
LiweiZ|11 years ago
mjklin|11 years ago