According to the Associated Press and the Houston Chronicle, President Obama’s recent visit to China prompted a controversy over certain lines of Obama memorabilia sold there.
Liu Minjie owns a shop in China that (once) sold T-shirts and other merchandise decorated with a likeness of Obama manipulated to look like Mao Zedong, the architect of the PRC’s infamous Cultural Revolution. These items were wildly popular, but, one day, Minjie suddenly stopped selling them. Although he refused to answer a reporter’s questions about the incident, nearby shop workers claim that Beijing Industry and Commerce Administration officials ordered them to stop selling Obama merchandise, especially the so-called “ObaMao” items.
However, one Beijing store that specializes in political merchandise, was allowed to continue selling an Obama Superman action figure.
This double standard is almost as intriguing- though perhaps not as disturbing- as the great popularity the ObaMao products were met with in the Chinese marketplace. (Although, some Industry and Commerce Administration said shop owners were never prohibited from selling Obama products.)
The development of such popular Obama products is perhaps not a surprising result of the positive reception Obama has received in several places around the world. The controversial nature of the ObaMao items, though, along with the alleged response of Chinese authorities, is indicative of China’s continuing struggle to adapt its society and political attitudes to a more modern world, and to balance the influences of its socialist history with contemporary reform movements.
