Historical Figure
Zhou Enlai
1898–1976
Premier of China from 1949 to 1976
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Biography
Zhou Enlai was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and aided the Communist Party in rising to power, later helping consolidate its control, form its foreign policy, and develop the Chinese economy.
Timeline
The story of Zhou Enlai, told in moments.
Travels to France on a work-study program. He organizes Chinese students in Paris and joins the Chinese Communist Party's European branch. He never enrolls in a university. He's too busy organizing. He also spends time in Germany and England before returning to China.
Joins the Long March with 86,000 Communist troops fleeing Nationalist encirclement. Over 6,000 miles in 370 days. By the time they reach Yan'an in Shaanxi province, fewer than 8,000 survive. Zhou walks most of it while suffering from malaria.
Named Premier and Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China on its founding day. He'll serve as premier for 26 consecutive years. No elections. No term limits. His role is to govern while Mao makes revolution.
Represents China at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Twenty-nine Asian and African nations attend. Zhou's charm and diplomacy surprise Western observers who expect a Communist apparatchik. He pushes for peaceful coexistence. On the way there, a bomb planted on his plane kills eleven people. Zhou had changed flights at the last minute.
Welcomes Richard Nixon to Beijing, the first U.S. presidential visit to Communist China. Zhou has spent months preparing the details. He and Henry Kissinger have been meeting secretly since 1971. The Shanghai Communique that emerges reshapes Cold War geopolitics.
Dies of bladder cancer in Beijing at 77. He's been working 18-hour days through months of treatment. Per his wishes, his ashes are scattered across China's rivers and fields. No tomb, no monument. When mourners gather in Tiananmen Square in April to honor him, the Gang of Four orders the wreaths removed. Riots erupt.
In Their Own Words (5)
Nikita Khrushchev: You must acknowledge that I come from the working class, while you were born to a family of the bourgeoisie.
Zhou: Yes, but we have one thing in common. We have both betrayed our class., 1991
For us, it is all right if the talks succeed, and it is all right if they fail.
On President Richard Nixon’s visit to China (5 October 1971), as quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988) edited by James Beasley Simpson, 1988
China is an attractive piece of meat coveted by all … but very tough, and for years no one has been able to bite into it.
To the Chinese Communist Party Congress, as quoted in The New York Times (1 September 1973), 1973
All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.
As quoted in Saturday Evening Post (27 March 1954); this is a play upon the famous maxim of Clausewitz: "War is the continuation of politics by other means"., 1954
We shall use only peaceful means and we shall not permit any other kind of method.
Concluding his summary of his government’s approach to boundary settlement at Bandung, with a pledge and a warning, as quoted in "How the Sino-Russian Boundary Conflict Was Finally Settled : From Nerchinsk 1689 to Vladivostok 2005 via Zhenbao Island 1969" by Neville Maxwell, 1689
Artifacts (15)
Esbossos per a caricatures de personatges de la política internacional publicats a la premsa
Guillén, 1947-
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