Veteran Chinese diplomat and Mao Zedong’s interpreter dies

BEIJING — Ji Chaozhu, a veteran Chinese diplomat who provided English translation for leaders from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping and served as an undersecretary of the United Nations, has died, the foreign ministry said. He was 90.

In this Feb. 21, 1972, file photo, Ji Chaozhu, right, stands near then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, center, greeting then U.S. President Richard Nixon at Beijing Airport in Beijing. Ji, a veteran Chinese diplomat who provided English translation for leaders from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping and served as an undersecretary of the United Nations, has died on April 29 in Beijing, the foreign ministry said late Wednesday, May 6, 2020. He was 90. (AP Photo, File)

Ji had also served as ambassador to Britain over the course of a lengthy career that began after he left Harvard University to return to China during the Korean War when U.S. and Chinese troops engaged in vicious combat.

After briefly studying at the prestigious Tsinghua University, he was assigned by dint of his fluent English to assist with the peace talks at the village of Panmunjon between the warring sides.

That led to a job as an interpreter to Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai as well as Mao, with whom he appeared on the reviewing stand atop iconic Tiananmen Gate when foreign guests were present.

After Mao’s death, Ji took on a similar role with successor Deng Xiaoping. Having been dispatched by Zhou to set up an informal liaison office in the U.S. in 1973, Ji accompanied Deng to America after the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the longtime antagonists in 1979 and later worked at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

That was followed by assignments as ambassador to Fiji and the U.K. and five years as a U.N. under-secretary-general for development support and management services, a position from which he retired in 1996.

His last post was as vice president of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, from which he stepped down in 2005.

Ji was born into a wealthy family in the northern Chinese province of Shanxi in 1929 and moved with his family to the U.S. when he was 9. He and his brother attended exclusive private schools in New York where he developed fluent English and deep knowledge of American culture that would prove him so valuable to China’s drive to confront the West and restore what it views as its traditionally dominant role in Asia.

Like many high officials, Ji experienced various persecutions during the xenophobic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, particular due to his foreign education and the fact that his brother had remained in the U.S. He chronicled his experiences in his autobiography, “The Man on Mao’s Right”

In a brief notice sent to The Associated Press, the foreign ministry said Ji had died on April 29 in Beijing from an unspecified illness.

“We mourn the unfortunate passing of Mr. Ji Chaozhu and send our condolences to his family,” the ministry said.

Ji is survived by his wife and two sons.