Diaries of Mao Zedong aide can stay at Stanford rather than return to China, U.S. court rules

The diaries of an aide to former Chinese leader Mao Zedong can stay at Stanford University, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, ending a yearslong legal battle that had raised concern they would no longer be accessible if returned to China.

HONG KONG — The diaries of an aide to former Chinese leader Mao Zedong can stay at Stanford University, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, ending a yearslong legal battle that had raised concern they could be censored if returned to China.

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Li Rui, a senior member of China’s ruling Communist Party, became Mao’s personal secretary in 1958. In diaries he kept for eight decades starting in 1938, Li left a rare record of Chinese history from an insider’s perspective, including a firsthand account of the military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

The diaries also included criticism of the Great Leap Forward, an industrialization program championed by Mao from 1958 to 1961 that caused a famine estimated to have killed as many as 40 million people.