China lays to rest Mao's chosen successor Hua Guofeng

BEIJING-China laid to rest on Sunday Hua Guofeng, one of the last of the old guard from the Mao era who had been hand-picked by a dying Mao Zedong to succeed him as Communist Party chairman.Hua, who died on August 20 aged 87, helped ease the country out of the chaotic Cultural Revolution, but was later toppled by reformist leader Deng Xiaoping.Hua was cremated at Babaoshan, the cemetery for the Communist Party's elite in a western suburb of Beijing, the official Xinhua news agency said. He was "an outstanding CPC member, a long-tested and loyal Communist fighter and a proletarian revolutionary who once held important leading posts in the CPC and the government", Xinhua said.A source close to the family told Reuters that both President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao visited Hua in hospital before he died, in a sign of respect to the former leader.Mao's daughters and his grandson sent flowers, the source added.S tate television showed Hu and Wen at the funeral, which was also attended by former president Jiang Zemin and former premier Zhu Rongji.State radio added that another guest was Deng's son Deng Pufang, paralyzed from the waist down after mysteriously falling from a Peking University building in 1968 at the height of the turmoil unleashed by Mao during the Cultural Revolution.

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