50 years on, Korean war still perplexes Chinese
Mao Zedong's only son, Mao Anying, has been remembered in an article in Guangming Daily in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the Korean armistice tomorrow.
In his late 20s and recently married, the young Mao joined the volunteer army to defend his communist brethren in North Korea against the American attack. Like thousands of young men in the prime of their lives, he was killed in a war that has not officially ended.
The remembrance article struck an odd note for many in China. With the national focus seemingly set on economic success and modernity, the central authorities are seen as trying awkwardly to keep alive the defunct myth of socialist brotherhood, yet without fanning volatile anti-American sentiment.
It is a difficult line to walk. As hostility escalates between North Korea and the US, threatening to erupt into a second war on the peninsula, China has still not fully come to grips with its role in the first conflict.
'China has never marked the armistice with celebration,' said Ye Zicheng, head of the Diplomacy Department at Peking University.