Chinese puzzle over mystery of the missing statue of Confucius

THE MYSTERIOUS disappearance of a 31ft bronze statue of Confucius opposite Beijing's Tiananmen Square has sparked an online flurry of speculation by worried Chinese.

The statue of the 2,500-year-old sage was unveiled three months ago in the Communist government's most visible endorsement yet of an icon it had once reviled.

Today it was missing from the pavement on the north side of the recently reopened National Museum of China, with no notice as to where or why it had gone.

Online forums were abuzz with speculation as to its fate. The news portal sina.com quoted a museum staff member saying it had been moved inside to a new sculpture garden.

The staff member, who was not identified by name, said the statue had been displayed outdoors while the garden was being completed.

Museum officials would not comment and said no tickets were available to go inside and check.

A woman who answered the telephone at the office responsible for the district encompassing Tiananmen Square said she had no information on the statue.

The 31ft bronze sculpture of a robed Confucius had sat just north-east of Tiananmen Square roughly facing a massive portrait of Mao Zedong, founder of China's Communist regime, hanging from famed Tiananmen Gate at the entrance to the Forbidden City.

Confucius was at the centre of Chinese civilisation for nearly two millennia but was widely denigrated by Mao, who railed constantly against traditional culture and what he called "feudal thinking".

Thirty-five years after Mao's death, the statue's appearance was seen as proof of Confucius' rehabilitation as an underlying ideology for a society that has largely discarded communist ideology, even as it retains the one-party Leninist political system.

Already in recent years, Confucius has featured in new books and training courses, as well as in a state-funded biopic last year starring Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-Fat in the title role.

While the statue's new location could not be verified, internet users speculated as to whether its removal had been planned all along, or had been prompted by political pressure.

The website maoflag.net favoured by hard-core Maoists critical of China's pro-market leadership, heralded the statue's removal as a sign of the government giving way to popular sentiment against building up ideological rivals to the foreign leader.