Word: qiao
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Dates: during 1983-1983
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...DIED. Qiao Guanhua, 70, Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China from 1974-76 who played a crucial role in improving his country's relations with the U.S. before he was dismissed from office for his alleged connections with the purged radical faction, the Gang of Four; of lung cancer; in Peking. A worldly, seasoned diplomat and close ally of the late Premier Chou Enlai, Guanhua, was known for his wide-ranging intelligence and acerbic wit. Because of his ties with Mao Tse-tung's widow, Gang of Four Leader Jiang Qing, Guanhua became...
That first night, when Wang Bingnan offered me his banquet of return, another old friend joined us on Fragrant Hill ? Qiao Guanhua. Qiao and I had been friends in our youth, when he was a fiery left-wing journalist. Later, as Foreign Minister of China, he and Henry Kissinger worked out the landmark "Shanghai Communique" of 1972, in which America recognized that Taiwan was part of China, but insisted on a "peaceful" solution. Qiao Guanhua had gone on with Mao to the end; he was released from house arrest by the new regime only last year; his wife, suspect...
This night Qiao Guanhua would not let himself be cornered on his stewardship of Chinese foreign policy under Mao; nor on his arrest after Mao's death; nor on the Cultural Revolution. I pressed him on what had gone wrong in China since our youth and his triumphant career; he dodged. When I finally pressed, deeply and hard, on the transition, he elegantly replied, "You must remember what Hegel said, that a man reaches an understanding of the history of his own time step by step ? only step by step...
...Qiao Guanhua was ill when I met him, a scarf wrapped around his throat. He was in the hospital when I left. I do not think I will ever see him again. But I remember his words, "step by step." Which is the way that both we and the Chinese must go through this passage of history. No "ultimate solutions" are possible, either for the Chinese or ourselves; but "step by step" we may get there...