Did the Chinese conquer the north face of Everest on May 25, 1960? For mountaineers and Western historians, this ascent is a fraud. No photo of the summit, flag, or trace of a symbol supposedly arranged at the top. A story full of inconsistencies and dubious testimony. In 2020, a big-budget film, starring Jackie Chan, still retraced this 1960 ascent, with the sole aim of glorifying China, explains Cédric Gras, in the preamble.
Without nuance, without reference to the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the annexation of Tibet, and their share of battles, famines, massacres and cannibalism. Without a word that the climbers had been trained by the Soviets. Nothing about the reality of an ascension, the end of which – asserting the country’s territorial hegemony to the highest echelons – justified the lie.
Especially since most of the 8,000 meters had been conquered by the hated Western bourgeois and China, India and Nepal were in conflict on the Himalayan borders. Marked by this impasse on the time, the author, writer-traveler and distinguished geographer, then set out to reconstruct “the true chronicle of Mao’s mountaineers”.
The task is not easy. “The truth is not available. Unlike the Soviet archives, those of Beijing, if they exist, remain inaccessible. Cédric Gras can however count on online sources, in libraries, in Chinese and in English, and on the help of sinologists who provide him with unpublished documents.
The author, who is interested in the fate of the men involved in this celestial conquest, focuses on two climbers who know nothing of the dangers of the high mountains, chosen for their loyalty in the communist struggle.
What counts for these valiant Maoists is to reach the summit and plant a statuette bearing the image of the Grand Helmsman. The means are colossal. “Four hundred sheep, cattle and pigs were slaughtered as fresh meat was needed. It’s a seat. The fortress is called Qomolangma, “residence of the deity Jomo Miyo Sangma Lang, the one who bestows wealth and prosperity on those who pay homage to her, while the Tibetans are starving.
During the Cultural Revolution, some will go through re-education camps, “to pick up the shit of men after having rubbed shoulders with the purity of the ice”, because mountaineering had become a suspect discipline, and their practitioners bad communists.
The Alpinists of Mao, a book written by Cédric Gras which tells of an ascent to the roof of the world, shrouded in mystery and lies.
