A monumental mistake?

• Position: THE BIG PICTURE - Mao Zedong' statue - Brief article

Well, that didn't last long. Just two days after this 120-foot-tall statue of Mao Zedong was installed in China's Henan Province last month, authorities had it removed amid a flurry of controversy. Mao, who founded the People's Republic of China after his Communist forces won a civil war in 1949, is mostly revered in China. But after photos of the colossal statue, which was built by a local businessman for about $460,000, went viral, many complained on social media. Some denounced its extravagance in a poor, rural part of China, where the money could have been spent on education or healthcare. Others pointed to the irony of erecting Mao's statue in Henan, a province hit hard by the famine that resulted from the dictator's forced industrialization campaign from 1958 to 1960. Many...