En-lai Chou, widely regarded as the most influential diplomat in the history of Communist China, was also known as the right-hand man of Mao Zedong.
Born in rural Hwaian, China in 1898, the exact date is unknown, En-lai was the son of an imperial government bureaucrat. His disillusionment with the Manchu court's concessions to the West led him to become a militant nationalist.
En-lai joined the socialist movement in 1917 while studying in Japan, and two years later, he was arrested for being a leftist agitator. After his release in 1920, he fled to France, where he became an active corresponding member of the newly founded Communist Party.
En-lai completed his Marxist studies and returned to China in 1922 to join Sun Yat-sen, who was cooperating with the Communists. In 1924, he taught at Whampoa Military Academy, which was under Communist control.
In 1927, fighting broke out between the Communist rebels and Nationalist troops loyal to Chiang Kai-shek in Shanghai. En-lai became one of the top commanders of the Chinese People's Red Army and, by 1931, he was second-in-command with the rank of general alongside Mao.
En-lai played a key part in the Red Army's survival and took part in the "Long March" of 1934, when the Red Army retreated across the country to rebuild their shattered forces. In 1937, after Japan invaded China from occupied Manchuria, En-lai negotiated a truce between the warring Chinese armies to combat the Japanese.
Throughout the Second World War in China, En-lai served as the Communists' chief liaison with Chiang Kai-shek, marking his transition from field commander to diplomat. As a result of his new role, En-lai helped plan the overall strategy during the second civil war that broke out between the Communists and Nationalists after the defeat of Japan in late 1945.
Following the Communist victory that resulted in the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, En-lai was named premier and foreign minister. During his long political career, En-lai played an important role in the negotiations that ended the Korean War, the French war in Indochina, the US involvement in Vietnam, and the normalization of relations with the US in 1972.
En-lai Chou died while in office in Peking (Beijing) from cancer on January 8, 1976, at the age of 77 or 78, second only to Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong in the Communist hierarchy.
