Activities and affiliations

Government and administration People’s Republic of China 1898–1976 ○ Natural causes

The PRC's first premier and an architect of its foreign policy

His 1971 secret talks with Kissinger opened the way for Nixon's arrival in Beijing on 21 February 1972, and the Shanghai Communiqué of 28 February 1972 reordered the Cold War triangle.

A Chinese statesman born in Huai'an, Jiangsu in 1898 and died in Beijing in 1976. One of the CCP's earliest leaders, he joined a Chinese communist cell in Paris, served in the Political Department of the Whampoa Military Academy, and acted as the Party's chief negotiator through the Xi'an Incident and the Chongqing negotiations. Appointed premier (of the Government Administration Council, later the State Council) with the founding of the PRC in October 1949, he served until his death in 1976, and concurrently as foreign minister from 1949 to 1958, becoming an architect of early PRC foreign policy. After the Zunyi Conference he was subordinate to Mao, and amid the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution he kept the state running and managed the balance of power.

Government and administration People’s Republic of China 1913–2002 ↓ Removed 1962 · natural causes

A founder of the northern Shaanxi base, purged for sixteen years, who opened Guangdong’s special economic zones

He built the Shaanxi–Gansu base with Liu Zhidan that became the Long March's destination, was purged in 1962 and confined for sixteen years, then opened the special economic zones as Guangdong's first secretary in 1978.

From Shaanxi, he founded the Shaanxi–Gansu base with Liu Zhidan, the destination of the Long March. After 1949 he headed the Northwest Bureau and served as State Council secretary-general and vice-premier, but in 1962 Kang Sheng denounced the novel Liu Zhidan as an “anti-party” defence of Gao Gang and Xi was purged, spending sixteen years in confinement and rural exile. Returning as Guangdong first secretary in 1978, he asked the centre for the power to “take one step ahead” to stem the flight to Hong Kong, which led to the Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou special economic zones in 1980. A Secretariat member in the 1980s, he supported Hu Yaobang and opposed his removal in 1987. He was Xi Jinping’s father.

Government and administration People’s Republic of China 1928–2019 ○ Natural causes

The premier who declared martial law in May 1989, called “the butcher of Beijing”; Zhou Enlai’s ward

An engineer who became premier in 1987, declared martial law in Beijing on 20 May 1989, and was the government official held responsible for the military crackdown of 3-4 June.

From Sichuan, he was raised under the protection of Zhou Enlai and his wife after the Nationalists executed his father in 1931. Trained in hydroelectric engineering at the Moscow Power Institute, he rose through the electricity ministry and succeeded Zhao Ziyang as premier in 1987. After the televised dialogue with student representatives collapsed on 18 May 1989 he declared martial law in Beijing on 20 May and was the government’s responsible official for the crackdown of 4 June. As premier he pushed through the Three Gorges Dam, and he chaired the National People’s Congress Standing Committee from 1998 to 2003. He died in 2019.