Kang Keqing
| Kang Keqing | |
|---|---|
| 康克清 | |
| Spouse of the Head of State of China (de facto) [1] | |
|
In office 17 January 1975 [2] – 6 July 1976 | |
| Chairperson of the All-China Women's Federation | |
|
In office 1978–1988 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 7 September 1911 |
| Died | 22 April 1992 (aged 80) |
| Spouse(s) | Zhu De |
Kang Keqing (K'ang K'e-ching; Chinese: 康克清; pinyin: Kāng Kèqīng; September 7, 1911 – April 22, 1992) was a politician of the People's Republic of China, and the wife of Zhu De.
She was born as Kang Guixiu (康桂秀) in Wan'an, Jiangxi Province. She became a peasant leader in a small partisan area that merged with the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet led by Mao and Zhu De. She later married Zhu.
Agnes Smedley's biography of Zhu describes her as follows:
″Up from the Wanan district to the west came a delegation of Peasant Partisans, and among them was the woman leader Kang. She carried a rifle as if it were a part of her and, like the men, she walked with lithe decision and certainty. A woman in her middle twenties, of medium height and shingled hair, she wore the usual clean blue jacket and long loose trousers of the peasant woman. Her face was pock-marked and men said that because of this she was not beautiful. But they admitted that her large black eyes were beautiful and shone with the fire of conviction, and when she smiled, two rows of white teeth gleamed between beautiful red lips. Illiterate she was indeed, for she had been the slave of a rich landlord who had bought her in childhood and used her a field laborer. Though she could recognise but a few written characters, still she was very intelligent so that men said of her: ″'Her thoughts are as clear and direct as bullets fired from a machine-gun'″[3]
She became a women's leader in the Red Army and was one of a small number of women who were on the Long March. [4]
She later served as vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), chairman of the All-China Women's Federation, and president of Soong Ching-ling Foundation.
During the Cultural Revolution, Kang was under house arrest. She was later rehabilitated. She was a member of the 11th and 12th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China (1977-1987).
Notes
- ↑ The position of Chairman was officially abolished in 1975 and the functions of head of State were formally transmitted to the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress until Song Qingling became Honorary President in 1981.
- ↑ Zhu De was re-elected as Chairman of the NPCSC
- ↑ Smedley, Agnes. The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh. Monthly Review Press 1956. Page 137
- ↑ Smedley, The Great Road, pages 272
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1 - Wife of Hua Guofeng / 2 - Wife of Deng Xiaoping both are the de facto paramount leader of the PRC / parentheses - spouse of the de jure Head of State under the 1975 Constitution & 1978 Constitution | ||