The recent high-level meeting between China and the United States in Alaska was the first meeting between the two sides since the Biden administration took office, and it attracted the attention of people around the world. The US side, who was not good, deliberately embarrassed the Chinese side at the meeting, and was rejected by our diplomats, and the Chinese translator Zhang Jing became famous in the first world war, and was instantly named "the most beautiful female translator" by the whole network.
Zhang Jing's popularity made us realize that in the diplomatic battlefield where there is no smoke of gunfire, every confrontation is not a diplomat fighting alone, and everyone who travels with him has an important role. In addition to the relevant staff, the most accompanying diplomats on their visits is the wives of officials.
Some people may think that a visit abroad with his wife is just a courtesy, and its symbolic significance is greater than its actual role. In fact, "lady diplomacy" can avoid many hard-hitting situations in diplomatic occasions, and has an irreplaceable role in promoting diplomatic progress.
Premier Zhou Enlai
As early as the founding of New China, Premier Zhou recognized the importance of "lady diplomacy". At that time, new China had just been founded, which was the golden age of diplomatic development, but there was no real "first lady" in China.
At that time, although Jiang Qing accompanied Chairman Mao, she was never publicly recognized by the media and official occasions, and she herself always called herself a "student and comrade-in-arms" of the chairman. At that time, Premier Zhou Enlai was also the foreign minister of New China, and his physical condition became very poor by working day and night, and in order to better develop the diplomatic cause of New China, he entrusted this heavy burden to Chen Yi.
After Chen Yi became the foreign minister of new China, Premier Zhou deliberately mobilized his wife Zhang Qian to take charge of "lady diplomacy." But at that time, Zhang Qian already had a career she loved, and she was unwilling to change majors for her husband. Under the persuasion of Zhou Enlai's wife, Deng Yingchao, Zhang Qiancai made up her mind to provoke the head of "lady diplomacy".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" diplomatic talents selected by Premier Zhou ></h1>
Comrade Zhou Enlai, who was called "the people's good premier," bowed down to the motherland and the people, and his health was greatly affected. At the beginning of the founding of New China, he also concurrently served as the foreign minister of New China, leaving a unique style in international exchanges.
However, due to his busy state affairs and his poor health, he deliberately entrusted foreign affairs work to others, and among the many candidates at that time, Chen Yi, then mayor of Shanghai, was selected by him as the next head of foreign affairs.
In 1955, when Premier Zhou went to Bandung to attend the famous Bandung Conference, Chen Yi went with him as an assistant.
After Chen Yi became foreign minister, Chen Yi's wife, Zhang Qian, received high-level treatment in foreign affairs activities in the name of the wife of the new Chinese foreign minister. Therefore, Zhou Enlai's wife, Deng Yingchao, suggested to Chen Yi that Zhang Qian should shoulder the burden of "lady diplomacy" in New China.
Chen Yi's wife, Zhang Qian
However, before Chen Yi became foreign minister, Zhang Qian already had her own career. At this time, she had translated and published two books under the pseudonym Geng Xing, the novel collection "Yuan Sha" and the multi-act play script "Ordinary Man", and her ideal was to be able to compile dozens of books and find her own way in literature.
When her husband and she offered to take on the responsibility of "lady diplomacy," she instinctively chose to refuse. Yeah, who wants to give up half of their hard work and turn to another path with an uncertain future? But later, Zhang Qian left the publishing house and became active on the diplomatic stage of new China. What contributed to her transformation?
All this must start from the beginning of the story.
Zhang Qian and Chen Yi
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="14" > the smoke of war is made up of poems</h1>
Zhang Qian and Chen Yi met in the spring of 1939, when the Red Army guerrillas had just been reorganized into the New Fourth Army, and Chen Yi was the commander of the first detachment of the New Fourth Army, while Zhang Qian was only an ordinary worker in the field service regiment of the New Fourth Army.
The first time Chen Yi met Zhang Qian was when he went to the Southern Anhui Military Headquarters to inspect the work, Zhang Qian was performing the drama "Magic Cave" in the auditorium. The actor who plays the little cabbage in the play is Zhang Qian, and when he saw this flower-like woman, Chen Yi, a soldier, couldn't help but ripple in his heart.
Born in the late Qing Dynasty, Chen Yi was nearly a confused year at this time, and he had been married twice before meeting Zhang Qian. However, due to the turbulent situation and the chaos of the war, he would cut off contact with his family as soon as he left home. His wife's only way to know his safety was to rely on rumors, and the reactionaries kept spreading rumors about his death.
Therefore, after hearing that his first wife, Xiao Yingju, had died, he also jumped into the well at home to be martyred, and when Chen Yi ran home, he only saw a corpse of his wife.
The rumor that the second wife, Lai Yueming, got was that Chen Yi had already been cut off by the reactionaries, and she remarried someone else after not getting news of her husband for a long time.
Later, he fell in love with a revolutionary comrade, Hu Lanqi, and the two sides were happy with each other and intended to form a connection, but the organization believed that Hu Lanqi's concealment of the Communist Party's identity was more conducive to united front work, so the marriage application of the two was not approved. For the sake of the future of the revolution, Chen Hu and Chen Hu put their affection for each other in their hearts and drank this cup of bitter wine each.
As a result, Chen Yi, who was almost 40 years old, was still a bachelor at this time, and when Zhu Kejing, the leader of the field service group, learned of Chen Yi's intentions for Zhang Qian, he intended to create opportunities for the two of them.
Chen Yi
During a performance, a temporary difficulty arose in the troupe, and the actors in the play were still missing a piece of clothing. At this time, the organization arranged for Zhang Qian to borrow clothes from Chen Yi. When she came to Chen Yi's residence, Chen Yi looked very surprised, recognized Zhang Qianlai at a glance, and said to her: "I have seen you in Yunling before, and you are playing a small cabbage!"
When he learned of Zhang Qian's intentions, he took off the clothes he was wearing and handed it to her, and at the same time secretly stuffed a small note in the pocket of the clothes, and wrote a small poem on the paper. The name of the poem is "Zan Chunlan", and he has written this poem since he learned from Zhu Kejing that Zhang Qian's nickname was Chunlan.
After Zhang Qian got the clothes, she naturally saw this poem, and she kind of understood the chief's intentions for herself. But this 17-year-old girl does not understand Chen Yi at this time, and her deep yearning for love has not yet had a specific outline.
At this time, Chen Yi received the combat task and wanted to go out to participate in the war, so he and Zhang Qian agreed that the two of them would communicate through letters. In later contacts, Zhang Qian gradually learned about Chen Yi's combat experience over the years and his bumpy feelings, and the letters between the two recorded the feelings of both sides during this period.
In this war-torn era, Chen Yi wrote a lot of poems for Zhang Qian, so that this young girl also felt the sweetness of love in this special era, and she slowly fell in love with the chief who was many years older than herself.
In 1940, witnessed by comrades in the field, the two officially held a wedding.
Chen Yi and Zhang Qian
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="26" > get together less and leave more after marriage, and still don't forget to improve yourself</h1>
At that time, it was in a state of stalemate in the War of Resistance Against Japan, and soon after their marriage, Chen Yi led his troops north to participate in combat missions. However, in 1941, the year after their marriage, the Kuomintang reactionaries launched the Anhui Incident, and many officers and men of the New Fourth Army were unjustly sacrificed, but Chiang Kai-shek at this time took a bite back, declared the new Fourth Army defection, and demanded that the general Ye Ting be dismissed from his post and handed over to military justice.
After the incident, Chen Yi was appointed acting commander of the New Fourth Army, and the burden on his shoulders has since become heavier. Since then, the two have been separated for a long time, and they have relied on letters to communicate with each other.
Even so, Zhang Qian never gave up on improving herself, and she insisted on teaching herself English and Russian under the dim oil lamp while following the troops on a mission. Under such harsh conditions, she also gave birth to two sons in succession, and her husband Chen Yiyuan fought on the front line, and she single-handedly pulled two children to grow up.
Zhou Enlai's wife Deng Yingchao (1st from right), Liu Shaoqi's wife Wang Guangmei (3rd from right), and Mrs. Chen Yi (1st from left)
"The king's ambition and warning words are also accompanied by stepping through mountains and rivers." This poem is a true portrayal of Zhang Qian's mood at this time.
It was not until 1949, after the end of the Liberation War, that Chen Yi was appointed mayor of Shanghai, when the family was truly reunited. With Zhang Qian's performance in the wartime, she could easily obtain a position equivalent to a regimental salary at this time.
But she had great ambitions in mind and wanted to continue her studies in Russian and work as a literary translator in the future. So she left Shanghai for the Taiping Lake Russian Language School in Beijing, and after her studies, she returned to the Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House as an editor.
She translated and published two works of former Soviet literature, a collection of novels, Original Sand, and a multi-act play, The Ordinary Man. In 1958, after the publication of Her Ordinary Man.
She also intended to continue translating several books to fulfill her literary ideal, but the change in her husband's work forced her to abandon this ideal. At the NPC the year her second book was published, Chen Yi was appointed vice premier and foreign minister.
Zhang Qian
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="34" > willing to give up their ideals for the great cause of the motherland</h1>
At the beginning of the founding of New China, the foreign minister was always Premier Zhou Enlai. With the improvement of New China's international status and the increasingly heavy task of receiving foreign affairs, the central authorities intended to find an assistant for Premier Zhou. Chen Yi's outstanding performance in the War of Resistance Against Japan, his ease of managing Shanghai after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and his overseas experience in studying in France made him a representative selected by the central authorities.
At the 1954 People's Congress, Chen Yi was elected vice premier of the State Council, and the focus of his work slowly shifted to diplomacy.
In 1955, chen Yi accompanied Premier Zhou Enlai to attend the Bandung Conference, which was of great significance to third world countries. After the Bandung Conference, the international influence of New China has become more and more large, and many leaders of countries have come to China to see.
Especially in those countries in Southeast Asia, their leaders often come to China with their wives to visit, but China does not have a "first lady" to receive these wives at this time, and often has to temporarily pull people to deal with them, and the reception effect is very bad.
Chen Yi and his wife Zhang Qian
In order to open up the situation of his wife's diplomacy, Chen Yi went home and mobilized his wife, Zhang Qian, to let her receive foreign groups in China with him.
In 1956, Zhang Qian was assigned to participate in a Chinese women's delegation to visit Pakistan, and the representatives of the delegation were all well-known representatives of the women's circles at that time.
In contrast, Zhang Qian is not only young, but also has shallow seniority. However, before they left, Deng Yingchao, then vice chairman of the All-China Women's Federation, specifically mentioned: "Due to the relationship between Vice Premier Chen Yi, Pakistan may have a relatively high reception standard for Zhang Qian, and I hope that the comrades in the regiment can support Zhang Qian's work." ”
This is Zhang Qian's first visit to a foreign country, and all she thinks about is a temporary cameo, but in Deng Yingchao's heart, she has already thought of letting her provoke the burden of madame diplomacy. This exhortation to other women comrades also reflects her good intentions.
However, Zhang Qian has ideals in her heart, she hopes to have her own independent career, and she is more willing to devote her whole body and mind to literary creation, rather than specializing in diplomatic work.
Chen Yi mobilized Zhang Qian several times without getting a positive answer, so he had to ask Premier Zhou for help. When Premier Zhou learned of this situation, he said to his wife, Deng Yingchao, "You female comrades are good at talking to each other, and you go and do work for her." ”
So Sister Deng asked Zhang Qian out and explained to her the importance of this work, and stressed that Premier Zhou Enlai hoped that she could do a good job in this work. After listening to Sister Deng's words, Zhang Qian went back and put away all her Russian dictionaries and related manuscripts, and was ready to engage in diplomatic work.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="44" > single-mindedly engaged in diplomacy To do the best</h1>
Now that she had decided to turn to diplomatic work, Zhang Qian was determined to do a good job in this work, and the first thing she did was to learn English from scratch. During the war years, she had taught herself English and Russian, and then she studied Russian and left english behind. When she promised to take on a new chapter in the history of Chinese diplomacy, she had to try to do better.
While learning English, she also began to study traditional literary works such as Chu Ci to improve her classical cultural accomplishment, so that whenever she appeared in front of people, she was a new China signboard.
In the year when Chen Yi became the foreign minister of New China, Cambodia and New China formally established diplomatic relations, and Cambodian Prime Minister Prince Sihanouk came to China for the first time and was impressed by the achievements made in the economic development of New China. He repeatedly invited Foreign Minister Chen Yi's wife to Cambodia to participate in the Water Delivery Festival, and under the difficulty of hospitality, Zhang Qian took a women's delegation to Cambodia for a visit.
Wherever the Chinese delegation went, it was warmly welcomed by the Cambodian people. The delegation spent a total of 8 days in Cambodia, during which they not only met with members of the royal family and heads of government, but also had cordial conversations with women representatives of society, such as the wives of ministers and ministers.
This visit was the first delegation sent by the Chinese side after the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Cambodia, and the delegates in the delegation were all women, and under the leadership of zhang Qian, the head of the delegation, they showed the beautiful image of Chinese women to the people of the world and broke the misunderstanding of the Chinese revolution in the international community.
In the mid-1960s, when Cambodia's domestic government changed, Prince Sihanouk needed Chinese support, and Zhang Qian led the team. When china visited Cambodia in May 1966, it agreed with Prince Sihanouk to jointly support the anti-American struggle in South Vietnam.
Prince Sihanoukville
Soon after, however, Cambodia's Lon Nol government formed a cabinet and the line of struggle turned to the right, which made Prince Sihanouk feel pressure. In order to counter the pressure of pro-AMERICAN forces at home, Prince Sihanouk hoped to gain China's support, so he personally called the Chinese Foreign Ministry and hoped that the Chinese side could send a delegation to visit Cambodia.
The Chinese side readily agreed to the Cambodian side's request, so it decided to send Zhang Qian to lead the team to visit Cambodia. After Zhang Qian came to Cambodia, on behalf of Premier Zhou Enlai and Vice Premier Chen Yi, she expressed her support for Prince Sihanouk and expressed her neutral attitude toward the Cambodian side. This visit has played a very important role in the continuation of Sino-Cambodian friendship.
Since the founding of New China, Zhang Qian has visited abroad a total of 21 times, and she has not only left her style in countries with friendly relations with Southeast Asia and other countries with China, but also has not fallen behind in confrontations with US politicians.
Zhang Qian and Chen Yi
In 1961, when Zhang Qian followed Chen Yi to Geneva to attend a conference, in order to publicize the proposition of new China to the world, Zhang Qian and Chen Yi were active in major banquets. At a cocktail party, Zhang Qian was talking with the wives of various countries when she saw Mrs. Harriman, the head of the Us delegation, walking toward her.
At that time, Sino-US relations were still in the period of unenzing, and there was discipline in advance at home, and no matter what occasions, they should not take the initiative to contact the Americans. So, when Mrs. Harriman came to talk to her, Zhang Qian pretended not to understand, smiled and shrugged, then turned and walked away.
Mrs. Harriman
Soon after, Ambassador Harriman squeezed into Chen Yi's circle to shake his hand, which was filmed by countless Chinese and foreign journalists, and the next day the news of "American politicians taking the initiative to shake hands with Chinese politicians" spread all over the world.
With her wisdom and composure, Zhang Qian has won the initiative for China in its exchanges with the United States. In the years that she followed Chen Yi actively in diplomatic occasions, she received the wives of presidents, princesses and queens of various countries, leaving her own name in the history of Chinese diplomacy.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="58" > Editing her husband's poems after Chen Yi's death</h1>
In 1972, when Chen Yi died of illness, Chairman Mao attended his memorial service and specially sought out Zhang Qian and told her: "Chen Yi is a good comrade." Chairman Mao's appraisal can be regarded as a conclusive conclusion for Chen Yi's life, so that Zhang Qian's heart is no longer wandering.
After the death of her husband, Zhang Qian also left the stage of Chinese diplomacy and sorted out the poems left by Chen Yi before his death. As we all know, Marshal Chen Yi not only fought first-class battles, but his literary style was not comparable to ordinary people. In the years of his life, he left countless moving poems, many of which were written for Zhang Qian.
In the year of her husband's death, Zhang Qian was also diagnosed with stomach cancer, and she actively received treatment, hoping to finish and publish her husband's manuscript. But when she finished the poem with all her might, the date of publication was far away.
Later, when her condition gradually deteriorated, Zhang Qian gave the children the poem she had compiled, hoping that the poem would eventually be published.
In 1977, the "Selected Poems of Chen Yi" was finally successfully published to meet a wide range of readers, but Zhang Qian died as early as 1974 at the age of 52.
As the wife of Chen Yi, the foreign minister of new China, Zhang Qian was willing to give up her ideals and devote herself to the diplomatic cause of the republic.
She is the representative of outstanding women in New China, and with her own efforts, she has safeguarded the friendship between New China and the countries that have established diplomatic relations, opened up the situation of "lady diplomacy" in New China, and made great contributions to China's international status today.