There still are Maoists?

When King Gyanendra all busted out with the Martial Law in Nepal to fight the Maoists it got me to thinking: Hunh? There still are Maoists? Someone needs to send them on a field trip to China.

I wanted to find out the following. Surely the political heirs of Mao wouldn't be indifferent to a group of rebels fighting for Maoist principles. Anyway I wrote a reporter at the Washington Post trying to get the scoop. I even tried pleading a little to get a response -- didn't work.


Feb 4th 2005
Dear Mr. Lancaster,

I am a native of the DC area and am a longtime reader of the Post. I am writing in regards to the coverage of the royal coup in Nepal. One angle of the story that I haven't seen covered in news reports that I find particularly relevant to understanding the problem, is to what degree the Maoists are supported either militarily, financially, or ideologically by China.

I ask this because historically the ideology of communism was fundamentally expansionist embodied in the slogan 'workers of the world unite.' The support - or lack thereof - by china of the Maoist rebels would measure the degree to which modern china views the importance of exporting communist ideology and perhaps would also indicate the legitimacy that traditional communist thinking still commands among the Chinese leadership.

sincerely,