Huang Hua, 97, a Diplomat Who Served China, Dies

November 24, 2010
Huang Hua, 97, a Diplomat Who Served China, Dies
By DAVID BARBOZA

SHANGHAI — Huang Hua, a Communist Party revolutionary who was China’s foreign minister during the 1970s and early 1980s and helped China restore diplomatic relations with the United States, died Wednesday in Beijing. He was 97.

The cause was complications of lung failure and kidney failure, his daughter-in-law, Dede Nickerson, said.

A loyal deputy to Zhou Enlai, then the prime minister, Mr. Huang was an amiable statesman at a time when China was moving to end decades of international isolation. Backed by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, those efforts set the stage for the country’s spectacular rise in the past three decades.

As a senior diplomat with excellent English, Mr. Huang was known for his toothy smile and conservative brand of diplomacy. Henry A. Kissinger, the former secretary of state, called him “one of the ablest public servants I have ever met” and a “trusted friend.”

He met Mr. Kissinger during the secret trip Mr. Kissinger made to Beijing in 1971 as President Richard M. Nixon’s national security adviser. He also negotiated with a series of American presidents, including Jimmy Carter, George Bush and Ronald Reagan, and he served as China’s first ambassador to Canada.

In late 1971, Mr. Huang was named China’s first permanent representative to the United Nations, taking up the post shortly after Beijing gained a United Nations seat.

As foreign minister, he held talks that led to the signing of a peace and friendship treaty with Japan, and he negotiated with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain regarding the 1997 transfer of Hong Kong to China.

When Beijing ordered him to be tough, he was. After the United States and China resumed diplomatic relations in 1979, he accused the United States of backtracking on its promises when it continued to sell weapons to Taiwan, which China continues to regard as a renegade province.

But Mr. Huang is perhaps best known for a secret trip he undertook as a college student in Beijing. In 1936, with China ravaged by civil war and Japanese aggression, he agreed to serve as an interpreter for the American journalist Edgar Snow, who had arranged to travel to a remote part of north China to meet a band of Communist rebels, including Mao.

With Mr. Huang’s help, Mr. Snow wrote a series of newspaper articles that created a sensation and led to the publication of “Red Star Over China,” a best seller and one of the first detailed accounts of Mao and the Chinese Communists.

Mr. Snow was later accused of writing Communist propaganda. He denied any bias but eventually moved to Switzerland, where he died in 1972. Mr. Huang visited him shortly before his death.

Huang Hua was born in January 1913 as Wang Rumei, the son of a teacher in Hebei Province, in northern China. After he joined the Communist Party, he changed his name to Huang Hua.

In the 1930s, Mr. Huang was a student leader in Beijing at Yanjing University, which was run by American missionaries. Like many college students at the time, he demonstrated against Japanese military action in China. He even helped form the December 9th Movement, named for the date of an anti-Japanese protest in Beijing.

After being detained by the police following a demonstration, he hid in the home of Mr. Snow and his wife, Helen Foster Snow, who was also a journalist. Mr. Snow was then teaching at Yanjing, and Mr. Huang was his student.

In 1936, Mr. Snow arranged to travel to the Soviet region of north China, which was then under blockade by the Nationalist Chinese government. Mr. Huang, who had already secretly joined the Communist Party, agreed to serve as an interpreter.

In Shaanxi Province, in northern China, Mr. Huang was one of several interpreters Mr. Snow depended on when he interviewed top Communist rebels. He translated Mr. Snow’s notes into Chinese and then shared them with Mao to determine if they were accurate, Mr. Huang wrote in his memoir.

After Mr. Snow returned to Beijing, Mr. Huang stayed in the region to aid the revolution. In the 1940s, he was a special assistant to Zhu De, a top Communist military strategist, and married He Liliang, who had moved to the area with her father, an adviser to Mao.

Mr. Huang also served as an interpreter for the United States Army Observer Group, which traveled to Yan’an to meet with Mao and other rebel leaders after the American-backed Chinese Nationalists formed an alliance with the Communists to fight Japan.

After the Communists took power in 1949, Mr. Huang joined the Foreign Ministry and negotiated the closing of the United States mission in China with John Leighton Stuart, the United States ambassador to China and a former dean of Yanjing University.

Mr. Huang participated in talks to end the Korean War and the Geneva Conference in 1954. He served as China’s ambassador to Ghana and Egypt between 1960 and 1969, when he returned during the Cultural Revolution because of the social and political upheaval Mao had created.

On his return, he and his wife were forced to work on farms in two different regions of the country. But in 1970, when Mr. Snow was preparing to travel to Beijing to meet again with Mao, Mr. Huang was called back to Beijing to serve as an interpreter and accompany Mr. Snow around the country.

It was during that trip that Mao hinted that he was willing to open talks with the United States and invited President Nixon to visit China.

After Mr. Snow’s visit, Mr. Huang was named ambassador to Canada and then permanent representative to the United Nations. He held secret talks with Mr. Kissinger in New York around the time of Mr. Nixon’s China trip.

In 1976, after Mao’s death, the Chinese foreign minister, Qiao Guanhua, was dismissed because of accusations that he had close ties to the notorious Gang of Four, which ruled in Mao’s name during his final years. Mr. Huang was named foreign minister and then vice prime minister. He retired in 1992.

He is survived by his wife, He Liliang; three children, and several grandchildren.