Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong's handpicked successor, Hua Guofeng, dies

Beijing - Hua Guofeng, the handpicked successor of the late Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong, has died in Beijing of an illness, state media reported Thursday. He was 87.

Hua died at 12:50 pm Wednesday, the official Xinhua news agency said in a brief four-paragraph report without specifying the type of illness.

After Mao's death in 1976, Hua stepped up to lead the then-politically unstable country, which had been mired in 10 years of the violent Cultural Revolution, launched by Mao.

After succeeding Mao, Hua ordered the arrests and sentencings of the Cultural Revolution instigators, the "Gang of Four," who included Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and thus brought the Cultural Revolution to an end.

'Mao's' Indian media become

Cultural Revolution supremo Mao ZedongJuyongguan Pass (near Beijing),