Mao Zedong's successor Hua Guofeng dies

BEIJING (AFP) - Hua Guofeng, who succeeded Mao Zedong as Chairman of China’s ruling Communist Party and briefly ruled the country, died Wednesday at the age of 87, state media reported.
State television CCTV and the official Xinhua news agency said Hua - one of the last of the revolutionary old guard - died in Beijing from an unspecified illness.
Hua spent a brief period at the helm of the Communist Party after Mao’s death in 1976, but was eased out of power a few years later by Deng Xiaoping, who introduced reforms that opened up China’s economy.
An official statement quoted by Xinhua praised Hua as “an outstanding CPC (Communist Party) member, a long-tested and loyal Communist fighter and a proletarian revolutionary who once held important leading posts in the CPC and the government.”
Delia Davin, professor emeritus of Chinese Studies at Leeds University, said he was someone “to whom history happened”.
“He wasn’t adequately strong, he should never have become Mao’s successor, and then he was deposed very gently. It was rather a sad life,” she said.
Born in north Shanxi province in 1921, Hua rose rapidly through the ranks under Mao’s reign - which began in 1949 - from an obscure cadre in central Hunan province to premier in 1976 after the death of Mao’s premier Zhou Enlai.
Davin, who was in Beijing at that time, said the news came as a surprise to most people as Hua was still relatively unknown at the time.
But he became party chief that same year after Mao’s death, based on the Great Helmsman’s simple remark, “With you in charge, I am at ease.”