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Yes. 20th of December, 1977 edition of People's Daily, on the nation-wide announcement of the Second Round of Simplified Chinese Characters. The prominent quotation on the top right is as follows: 毛主席語錄 文字必須改革，要走世界文字共同的拼音方向。 Quotations from Chairman Mao The writing system must be reformed; we must move in the direction of a ...

This falls under the heading of "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics." The first issue was "statistics." In 1957, there was a genuine but short-lived uptick in the amount of grain produced in China, 193 million tons. (Source: Time Magazine, Country volumes, China.) This was due to unusually good weather, but it led Mao to believe that he could "spare" some farm ...