Who was the better leader for China?

[Lord Halifax]

Mao: Helped fight the Japanese, united Mainland China under Communist rule, restored Chinese nationalism and pride.

Deng: not as charismatic as Mao, but more liberal in policy and economically.

This is a strange question. Mao created mass hunger and destroyed the lives of millions (plus large parts of the country's cultural heritage). Deng created the basis for the Chinese economic miracle. Who in their right mind would pick Mao?

[Lord Halifax]

Mao literally established the territorial integrity of the country. Deng just made it richer. I prefer Deng politically but Mao objectively did more.

But also much more terrible stuff. How can he not be worse on balance?

Also, if the Chinese civil war had ended in a frozen two state solution the nationalist China would almost certainly have been a free democracy today (looking at Taiwan and South Korea). Now you have an entrenched authoritarian government running a colossus. Was it really such a great thing to unite all of China? Mao may have been a capable war commander, but his results didn't create long term benefits for ordinary people.

[Lord Halifax]

You could make the argument for Mao if he had died in the 50's, or even as late as 1966 (although his failures were becoming undeniable by then) you could make the case that though he was fatally flawed, his unification of China was still a significant achievement. But the cultural revolution really tips the scales away from Mao 'merely' being a nasty tinpot dictator like Castro or Salazar or Ho Chi Minh or Park Chung-Hee (or for that matter, Deng himself), to a grotesque monster along the lines of Hitler, Tojo and Stalin.

I disagree. Causing the Great Famine after the (not so) Great Leap Forward already makes him a monster (15-30 mio. dead are a lot..).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
The earlier campaign against counter revolutionaries in 1950 cost the lifes of upwards of 2 mio. (even the official numbers say 700,00 dead). Mao was a Chinese Stalin right from the outset (or rather Hitler, an irrational romanticist).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_to_Suppress_Counterrevolutionaries

[Lord Halifax]

Both were unfortunate and knifed the USSR in the back. True, the KMT did more than the Communists, but the USSR did more than the KMT.

No reason to drag the USSR into this. Calling Mao "unfortunate" is a bizarre understatement.

[Lord Halifax]

You could make the argument for Mao if he had died in the 50's, or even as late as 1966 (although his failures were becoming undeniable by then) you could make the case that though he was fatally flawed, his unification of China was still a significant achievement. But the cultural revolution really tips the scales away from Mao 'merely' being a nasty tinpot dictator like Castro or Salazar or Ho Chi Minh or Park Chung-Hee (or for that matter, Deng himself), to a grotesque monster along the lines of Hitler, Tojo and Stalin.

I disagree. Causing the Great Famine after the (not so) Great Leap Forward already makes him a monster (15-30 mio. dead are a lot..).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
The earlier campaign against counter revolutionaries in 1950 cost the lifes of upwards of 2 mio. (even the official numbers say 700,00 dead). Mao was a Chinese Stalin right from the outset (or rather Hitler, an irrational romanticist).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_to_Suppress_Counterrevolutionaries

What I mean to say is murdering huge numbers in purges and killing vast scores via famine due to economic mismanagement isn't really unusual for a dictator (although China's enormous population means the raw numbers were much worse than your average dictator); but the Cultural Revolution really cements the insanity of Mao and his regime.

At least the Great Leap Forward was already in "monster class" and beyond "normal" dictator behaviour. None of the other dictators you mention committed atrocities on this level (and that is using a per capita based comparison).

[Lord Halifax]

Deng.  Of course as much as I oppose Mao and his cronies, I do give them credit for the atomic bomb, and restoration lost provinces like Tibet.  One caveat would be that if my side, the KMT, had won the 1945-49 civil war on the Mainland they would have done the same.

You really are a nasty little fascist aren't you?