At the heart of the Chinese Communist empire, in an imposing mausoleum in the centre of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the body of Mao Zedong still lies in state in a glass sarcophagus 35 years after his death.
Hundreds of thousands of visitors arrive annually to gaze at the waxen face of the man hailed for throwing off the yoke of foreign oppression to found modern China, and whose recurrent political campaigns and purges were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of his compatriots.
At the north end of the square, the former leader’s giant portrait still hangs above the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the entrance to the Forbidden City. His face adorns every banknote.