Venezuelan leader makes rare visit to Mao Zedong’s mausoleum as he seeks Beijing’s help in tackling economic crisis.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has begun a visit to China aimed at bolstering his country’s crisis-hit economy by paying his respects to Mao Zedong.
Calling the founder of Communist China a “giant of the homeland of humanity”, Maduro b owed three times in front of a wreath at the massive mausoleum in the capital, Beijing, where Mao’s body lies.
“We are beginning this state visit in the best way because we have come to pay tribute to the great helmsman Mao Zedong,” Maduro said on Friday.
“I was very moved because it really reminds of one of the great founders of a multipolar 21st century,” Maduro added.
Foreign leaders typically shy away from visiting the mausoleum of Mao, who is seen as responsible for the death of millions of Chinese during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution between 1949 and 1976.
Former Cuban President Raul Castro was the last major international leader to visit the site facing Tiananmen Square in 2005,10 years after his brother and former leader, Fidel, did in 1995.
