Fifty years ago January 9, 1976: Chinese PM Chou En-lai dead

Tokyo, Jan. 9:

Chou En-lai, Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China since its creation in 1949 and its leading force for moderation and detente with the United States, died yesterday (Thursday) in Peking after a long illness.

The 78-year-old descendent of Mandarin forbears who turned a communist revolutionary in his youth, had been confined to a hospital for much of the time since the spring of 1974 when he was stricken with a heart ailment.

Mr. Chou’s death was announced by the official Hsinhua news agency and monitored in Tokyo early today. It was confirmed by the U.S. State Department in Washington.

Radio Press, quoting Hsinhua news agency, said Mr. Chou died at 9.57 a.m. (local) on Thursday in Peking.

Mr. Chou did not see President Ford on his visit to China in December. He had talked in the hospital with foreign leaders visiting the country over the last year and a half.

During Mr. Chou’s illness, his duties had been taken over by Mr. Teng Hsiao-ping, who also has been mentioned as a possible successor to the ageing and ailing Chairman Mao Tse-tung.

But when other leaders, President Liu Shao-Chi and Defence Minister Lin Piao, fell by the wayside during the 1966-69 cultural revolution and its aftermath, Mr. Chou emerged as No. two.

Throughout his illness, Mr. Chou continued to interest himself in political affairs. He met important foreign visitors in his hospital suite and kept a finger on the pulse of Chinese life. But, in 1975, Dr. Henry Kissinger sent him flowers and got back a personal note, but there was no meeting.

He presided over a national people’s congress session which filled in many government gaps left by the cultural purge and laid down the blueprint for a massive new economic effort aimed at bringing China into the front rank of industrial nations by the end of the century.

Though he had been removed by illness from active management of Chinese affairs, Mr. Chou should be content to know that a full team led by an old friend and protégé, first Vice-Prime Minister Teng Hsiao-ping, was in charge.