'Father of Modern China' on display in Madison Square Gardens
But is it really him?
New York, 26 April 2050: The plasticised body of former Chinese Premier Jian Meng drew 120,000 people to its first day of public display here today.
Tens of thousands of mostly Chinese Americans waited in pouring rain all week to be among the first to view Meng's body outside China. Viewings will take place in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, before the body returns to its mausoleum in Taipei.
Meng, who died in 2048, is credited as the architect of the 'Chinese Miracle'. He led the transformation of China to a socialist free market economy, and achieved the peaceful re-integration of the island state of Taiwan in 2027.
But it was as a young firebrand, newly elected Premier that he devised the key policy which historians agree led to China's rise to be the pre-eminent global superpower - the 'Ten Years to Freedom' campaign. This was the decision in 2015 to phase out the use of fossil fuels by motor vehicles and industry within a decade.
Meng took the dramatic step in 2020, just five years into the campaign, of banning the sale of fossil fuels for private motor vehicles.
Meng claimed in his Little Green Book that, 'the 2015 attack by perfidious (sic) USA against Iran, and the subsequent impact on our economy from instability in oil supplies made it clear to me that China must either shuck the yoke of oil tyranny, or join the horde of morally corrupt nation states fighting like alley cats over the spilled milk of the Arab sheiks.'
China's reduced dependence on fossil fuels, and advanced alternative energy economy, enabled it to ride out the shockwaves of the 2028 Oil War with minimal economic impact compared to the fossil fuel dependent economies of the USA and EU.
Questions about authenticity
Meng is revered in China, and throughout the Chinese diaspora. It is the first time his body has been moved outside of China due to the grave risk of damage during air or sea transportation.
Meng's body was transported to New York by a Chinese PLA Suborbital, after Lloyds of Hong Kong agreed to underwrite the venture for an undisclosed sum.
The decision by the Chinese government to suddenly relent and allow Meng's body to leave China has however sparked rumours that the body is in fact not Meng, but simply a simulcra in lifelike plastic - or even a clone.
"How would you ever know?" asked one woman after her ten minute viewing was finished. She had queued for three days to see Meng. "It looks like him, so real he looks like he is just sleeping, but he is sealed in polycarbon so it makes him look like a plastic doll," she said.
Another man, who claimed to have met Meng at a Washington DC Embassy reception in 2028, said he was in no doubt. "It is him. Exactly as I remember him, just older. No doubt about it."
Plasticisation of the dead was pioneered by a German shock artist at the turn of the century, and is now in use for the mummification of persons of cultural significance by several cultures including China, Ukrainian Russia and India.
The first and oldest plastified mummy is that of former Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, whose body was removed from public display in 2029 following the Second Orange Revolution, which saw Western Russia vote to merge with Ukraine, and the subsequent destruction of many former Russian cultural icons.
But is it really him?
New York, 26 April 2050: The plasticised body of former Chinese Premier Jian Meng drew 120,000 people to its first day of public display here today.
Tens of thousands of mostly Chinese Americans waited in pouring rain all week to be among the first to view Meng's body outside China. Viewings will take place in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, before the body returns to its mausoleum in Taipei.
Meng, who died in 2048, is credited as the architect of the 'Chinese Miracle'. He led the transformation of China to a socialist free market economy, and achieved the peaceful re-integration of the island state of Taiwan in 2027.
But it was as a young firebrand, newly elected Premier that he devised the key policy which historians agree led to China's rise to be the pre-eminent global superpower - the 'Ten Years to Freedom' campaign. This was the decision in 2015 to phase out the use of fossil fuels by motor vehicles and industry within a decade.
Meng took the dramatic step in 2020, just five years into the campaign, of banning the sale of fossil fuels for private motor vehicles.
Meng claimed in his Little Green Book that, 'the 2015 attack by perfidious (sic) USA against Iran, and the subsequent impact on our economy from instability in oil supplies made it clear to me that China must either shuck the yoke of oil tyranny, or join the horde of morally corrupt nation states fighting like alley cats over the spilled milk of the Arab sheiks.'
China's reduced dependence on fossil fuels, and advanced alternative energy economy, enabled it to ride out the shockwaves of the 2028 Oil War with minimal economic impact compared to the fossil fuel dependent economies of the USA and EU.
Questions about authenticity
Meng is revered in China, and throughout the Chinese diaspora. It is the first time his body has been moved outside of China due to the grave risk of damage during air or sea transportation.
Meng's body was transported to New York by a Chinese PLA Suborbital, after Lloyds of Hong Kong agreed to underwrite the venture for an undisclosed sum.
The decision by the Chinese government to suddenly relent and allow Meng's body to leave China has however sparked rumours that the body is in fact not Meng, but simply a simulcra in lifelike plastic - or even a clone.
"How would you ever know?" asked one woman after her ten minute viewing was finished. She had queued for three days to see Meng. "It looks like him, so real he looks like he is just sleeping, but he is sealed in polycarbon so it makes him look like a plastic doll," she said.
Another man, who claimed to have met Meng at a Washington DC Embassy reception in 2028, said he was in no doubt. "It is him. Exactly as I remember him, just older. No doubt about it."
Plasticisation of the dead was pioneered by a German shock artist at the turn of the century, and is now in use for the mummification of persons of cultural significance by several cultures including China, Ukrainian Russia and India.
The first and oldest plastified mummy is that of former Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, whose body was removed from public display in 2029 following the Second Orange Revolution, which saw Western Russia vote to merge with Ukraine, and the subsequent destruction of many former Russian cultural icons.
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