South Africa’s China ambassador ‘compares Mandela to Mao’

South Africa’s ambassador to China has according to state media compared Nelson Mandela to Mao Zedong, the Communist leader whose rule saw tens of millions killed by famine and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.

“They were both very strong leaders who fought for the liberation of their people, and who also contributed to laying the foundation for further development in society,” South African ambassador Bheki Langa was quoted as saying by China’s official news agency Xinhua.

He added that Mandela, whose death was mourned on Tuesday in Soweto by dozens of world leaders - not including China’s President Xi Jinping - “valued the contribution the Chinese people, government and Party had made in ending the obnoxious system of apartheid in South Africa”.

Xinhua headlined its report: “Mandela, Mao shared similarities: S. Africa ambassador”.

In the West, Mao’s legacy is principally associated with the Great Leap Forward, the late-1950s industrialisation campaign that triggered widespread starvation, with academic estimates as high as 45 million deaths, and the Cultural Revolution, a bloody and turbulent social upheaval during the 1960s and 70s which remains a sensitive topic in the country.