Zhou Enlai Case

“Mao dominated any gathering; Zhou suffused it. Mao's passion strove to overwhelm opposition; Zhou's intellect would seek to persuade or outmaneuver it. Mao was sardonic; Zhou penetrating. Mao thought of himself as a philosopher; Zhou saw his role as an administrator or a negotiator. Mao was eager to accelerate history; Zhou was content to exploit its currents.”

Henry Kissinger, 2012

Zhou Enlai is undoubtedly one of the most important participants of the Cultural Revolution. Known as a ‘right hand’ of Mao Zedong as well as someone who became nearly considered as a counter-revolutionary, he defended his place in Chinese politics scene and help the country to make the biggest progress in its history.

As a diplomat and foreign affair specialist, he patiently endured the impact of the Cultural Revolution which had taken a life of his adoptive daughter Sun Weishi in 1968. Even though he privately criticized most of Mao’s reforms and procedures that were supposed to lead to a better country, he always stayed beside him trying to fix all mistakes.

Even before the Cultural Revolution started ruining the all country, the first efforts had been made to support the science, technology and economic progress. According to Wilson (1984), the goals had been summarized in the Four Modernizations by Zhou Enlai in 1963., The purpose was to strengthen specific fields such as agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology, which had been struggling with lack of experienced specialist who would be able to use all sources available across the country. Fully supported by the Chinese Government, the Four Modernizations were promoted at many congresses trying to arouse the interest of specialists from all institutions (Baum, 1981). The process was banned with the beginning of the Cultural Revolution when Mao decided to change the direction the country was heading to and the education became an undesirable problem that had to face attacks and punishment led by the Red guards. Fortunately, Zhou’s successor Deng Xiaoping didn’t give up and kept the project alive after Zhou’s dead in 1976, which gave us the chance to see China where it is now. Strong, powerful and successful.

During the long ten years of Mao’s revolutionary activities, Zhou quietly respected his policies and carried them out to survive and to carry on his work in the political world.

The largest turning point came in 1968 when Richard Nixon became the president of the USA (Barnouin, 2007). Since the very beginning, his target was to find a mediator to establish a direct contact with the top political leaders in