The news that the new Martin Luther King Jr. monument in Washington was created by a Chinese sculptor is tailor-made for right-wing freakouts, and the ConWeb has obliged.
Cliff Kincaid, of course, ranted about it in an Aug. 23 Accuracy in Media article declaring that the sculpture “was ‘outsourced’ to Lei Yixin, a Chinese government-approved sculptor best known for creating edifices glorifying Mao Tse-Tung, father of Communist China and notorious mass-murderer.” Kincaid goes on to cite anonymous bloggers and foreign newspapers criticizing the choice. Kincaid also wrote that “Mao, in a 1968 official Chinese government pamphlet, declared that King had been ‘assassinated by the U.S. imperialists’ and that they had ‘killed him in cold blood.'”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has noted that a construction boom in China has given Lei ample opportunity to build his skills, and reported that Lei was the choice of Harry E. Johnson Sr., president of the foundation that built the monument, was “Lei’s skill at capturing personalities in sculptures, his expertise in hewing granite and his extensive experience with large public monuments.”
Kincaid followed up with a column rehashing clips from Washington Post columnists criticizing the monument as the paper plans to publish a special section about it.
Newsmax piled on as well in an Aug. 22 article by Jim Meyers, who similarly cited a foreign newspaper to attack Lei and claimed that the sculpture “shows King emerging from a mountain of Chinese granite with his arms crossed.”