. Till recently books used to carry `Mao Se-Tung', but now most books here spell it as `Mao Ze-Dong'

If I remember it right, the Chinese standardised Latin spellings of the words of written Chinese in the 1970s as part of an effort to make the Latin alphabet the standard--or second standard--for the written language. That is, these spellings were introduced by the Beijing government as part of a literacy campaign in China. ("Written Chinese" because a former board member informed--by way of correcting--me that spoken Chinese doesn't exist.)